


Only Practice Makes Perfect

by SKayLanphear



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Clueless Boys, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friendship to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Smut, best friends decide to use each other for kissing practice, idiot boys, obviously things will go off the rails
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29771196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SKayLanphear/pseuds/SKayLanphear
Summary: Reki doesn't know the first thing about kissing and after a bit of light-hearted taunting, gets the idea to practice with Langa. They're best friends, aren't they? So they should help each other out. Boy lips couldn't be that different from girl lips anyway. Langa, meanwhile, knows this isn't a good idea. Yet, if having Reki to himself is ultimately impossible, then might as well take what he can get--even if it is going to be painful in the end.Their experimentation starts out innocently enough, but with curiosity and raging hormones at play, they might be too late by the time they go too far.
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 196
Kudos: 1178





	1. Chapter 1

Lip curling, Reki leaned heavily on Langa's shoulder and watched—horrified—at the scene unfolding before him. "What is he _doing_?" he muttered, unable to pull his gaze away.

"Some kind of mating ritual, I assume," Miya said beside him, not even bothering to look up from his phone.

"It's terrible," Reki said, continually awed by the flamboyant fashion in which Shadow was gyrating his hips and laughing far, far too loudly. The girls he was talking too were wide-eyed and giggling in what Reki assumed was discomfort, slowly beginning to shuffle away. "I thought he liked that girl he works with at the flower shop."

"He does, but he can't seem to get up the courage to actually ask her out," Miya supplied. "Joe suggested he practice after the race." The "S" race, that was, which had already ended.

"Bad suggestion," Reki muttered, before turning so he could whisper into Langa's ear. His nose just barely brushed Langa's icy blue hair. "Are you watching this? I'm going to get sick if he keeps it up much longer."

"Hm, what?" Langa sounded drowsy.

Reki reared back. "Were you sleeping?! Standing up?!"

"I was resting my eyes."

"Yeah, well," Reki shoved himself off his best friend. "I wish I could rest my eyes too, after having to watch Shadow attempt to flirt."

"I heard that!" Shadow howled, having whipped around on them. He was pointing fiercely at Reki, his face-paint beginning to melt after having been plastered in place so long.

With him distracted, the girls took their chance and scurried away. By the time Shadow turned back, they had vanished, leaving Reki to laugh as he leaned on Langa's shoulder again.

"Stop laughing!" Shadow yelled as he marched fiercely toward them and stuck his big face right in front of Reki's. "Not like you could do any better!"

Gaping, Reki balled his hands into fists and stood on his tip-toes, hoping it would make his glare that much more severe. "I could so!"

"Could not!"

"Could so!"

"Could not!"

"Oh my god, _stop_!" Miya griped. "You're both so _annoying_! We all know neither one of you has the skill to flirt with anyone, so shut up about it."

Shadow and Reki turned equally on Miya, gaping in outrage.

"Reki." Reaching out, Langa grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged. "Can we go home now? I'm tired." Perhaps for added effect, he yawned.

Reki ignored him. "Are you seriously saying you don't think I can flirt better than _him_?!" he asked, pointing rudely at Shadow's painted face.

"I think you're both equally as terrible as each other," Miya replied.

Shadow grinned. "Ha! Take that!"

"It wasn't a compliment to either of us!"

Sighing, Langa crouched down and sat on his skateboard, pouting.

"Have you ever even tried flirting with anyone before?" Shadow asked, crossing his big arms over his chest. "When we went to that hot spring, you didn't seem too keen on it, if I remember correctly."

"Still better than you."

Shadow kept grinning. "Have you ever even _talked_ to a girl before?"

"Of course!"

"A girl you _liked_?"

"Yes!"

Miya snorted.

"Keep out of it! You're, like, ten years old!"

Miya scoffed. "I'm fifteen!"

Reki stuck his tongue out at him.

"Look, just face it," Shadow said confidently. "You're at a disadvantage simply because of age. I've been out on the market a lot longer."

"Sad, then, that you're still so pathetic," Reki rebuked.

Shadow growled.

"He's got a point, Reki," Miya reasoned.

"No way! I've still got way more game than he does!"

Miya cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "Have you even ever kissed a girl before?"

Reki blanched. "Who said anything about kissing?! We're talking about flirting!"

"I've kissed a lot of girls," Shadow bragged.

"That's a bold-faced lie!"

"Is not! I have so kissed girls!"

"Have not!"

"Have so!"

Whining, Langa flopped back on the ground, his skateboard shooting out from under his butt and rolling across the track into some bushes.

"Look, maybe Shadow has kissed girls," Miya interjected. "We can't know for sure, but I _am_ certain that _you_ ," he poked his finger up at Reki, "have _never_ kissed a girl."

Boiling, Reki growled, while Shadow sniggered triumphantly.

"You've never kissed a girl either," Reki hissed down at Miya.

"Of course not! I'm _fifteen_! You, on the other hand, are eighteen."

"Plenty of eighteen-year-olds have never kissed a girl!"

"Aha! So you admit it!" Shadow said.

"I didn't!"

"Probably for the best," Miya said and flicked his bangs to the side. "You'd be a lousy kisser anyway."

Shadow started cackling, while Reki's hands balled into fists at his sides.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" he asked hotly.

"It means you flap your mouth too much," Miya reasoned, opening and closing his fingers in a talking motion. "Probably unpleasant for any girl that has to suffer your advances."

"All slobbery, like a dog," Shadow added.

"That's not true! I'm a _great_ kisser!"

Whining from the ground again, Langa rolled into his side and pretended to cry.

"How do you know if you've never kissed anyone?" Shadow asked.

Reki sneered. "Some things come naturally."

"You are so full of shit," Shadow said, waving him off and rolling his eyes. "At least I know I need to practice. You're going to get some poor girl tied up in your disgusting jowls one day and it's going to end the entire relationship."

Reki was livid.

"If he ever gets that far," Miya said and snickered.

"You guys both suck," Reki said as he reached down for Langa's hand. Brightening immediately, Langa leaned up and grabbed it, so Reki could yank him to his feet. "You'll regret it one day, when I have the hottest babe and you have _nothing_."

"Yes, because the sight of you with some babe will illicit regret and not disgust," Miya muttered.

"Whatever! Langa, get your board! We're leaving!"

"Finally!" Langa said and swooped down to grab his board out of the bushes, before both he and Reki were skating off toward the gates. Reki made sure to level a glare back at the other two for as long as he could, until distance and the remaining crowd got in the way.

"Man, those two don't have any idea what they're talking about," Reki said, sulking as he pushed himself forward.

"Why do you care?" Langa asked.

"I don't care!"

Langa shrugged.

Quiet so as to allow Reki to simmer a while longer, both of them were soon kicking up their boards as they approached Langa's scooter. Sliding said boards into place in their transport bag, Reki slipped it onto his back as Langa grabbed up their helmets.

"Home or food?" Reki asked, as he snapped his helmet into place.

Langa hummed. "Food first, then sleep," he decided.

"Sounds good to me," Reki agreed and climbed onto the back of the scooter behind Langa. They were zipping out through the gates shortly after, Reki holding his hands on Langa's narrow waist as he took them expertly through the late-night streets.

Despite knowing that the entire conversation with Shadow and Miya had been bogus and stupid and that they'd have forgotten about it by the next time they saw each other, Reki found himself dwelling. He shouldn't be, because no matter what they said, he was an eighteen-year-old boy and had plenty of time to worry about girls. He hardly even thought of them, truth be told. He'd much rather be focused on skating or designing his next board or hanging out with Langa. Girls weren't so great. What would he even do with one? Take them out to eat? Buy them gifts? Ugh, it sounded tedious.

The only facet of the whole thing that was truly hanging him up was the kissing thing. Not because he was _ashamed_ that he'd never kissed a girl (he had plenty of time, okay?!), but more so because he was… curious. He wasn't sure when he'd started becoming curious, but the development was pretty new. He'd always, _always_ , been far too preoccupied with skating to be thinking about something as dumb as kissing. Yet, the notion kept popping into his head of late, in the vein that he wanted to know what it was like, and what all the fuss was about. It couldn't be nearly as fun as skating, but if so many people were into it, then swapping spit with someone else had to have some kind of appeal.

What if he _was_ bad at it? How would he even know?

"Here?" Langa asked, as they slowed down in front of a tonkatsu restaurant they'd frequented during other late nights. They were open until about three in the morning, so they never had to worry for time.

"Yeah, sounds good," Reki said loudly, so he could be heard over the scooter's engine.

Pulling up in front of the restaurant, they were soon headed inside, Reki making sure to lug their board-bag in with them.

"Two orders of katsu curry," Reki said as he went to the counter to pay. The clerk nodded, while Reki produced the appropriate amount of cash. Behind him, Langa was wiping a few crumbs off a table and taking a seat.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" Reki asked, as he slid into the booth across from Langa.

"Huh?"

"Kissed a girl, you," Reki said.

Langa frowned. "…Why?"

"Just curious," he said lightly.

Langa kept frowning, before finally calming Reki's nerves and saying, "No, I've never kissed a girl."

"See?" Reki slumped in relief. "You're a hot guy that plenty of girls would want to kiss and you still haven't kissed one. You lived in Canada where people our age kiss all the time and still haven't. As far as I'm concerned, if you haven't been kissing people, there's nothing wrong with the fact that I haven't been."

Langa was staring down at the table. "I guess so."

"Stupid Shadow, stupid Miya," Reki griped. "Acting like such know-it-alls. I bet Shadow is a horrible kisser. He says he's kissed girls, but I doubt he's had that much practice. I wouldn't kiss him, that's for sure."

"Not with all that face paint," Langa agreed.

Reki side-eyed him. "He can't be that much better at kissing than the two of us," he reasoned. "He's been pining after that coworker of his so long, he can't have been getting in too much experience."

"Probably still more than you," Langa replied.

"And _you_!"

Langa shrugged. " _Practice makes perfect._ "

"What?"

"English saying," he replied. "It means that you can only get better at something if you practice. Shadow will always be a better kisser if you never practice."

"I _will_ practice… someday…" Reki pouted. "I don't think kissing is a thing you can just 'practice,' though, not like skating."

"I think you can," Langa replied. "My heard my mom talking to my aunt once and they were comparing all the guys they'd kissed. Some sounded really bad."

Reki sank in his chair. So it really was possible to be a bad kisser? But what did a bad kiss entail? What were the things he should do? And what should be avoided?

How did skating somehow sound easier than kissing?!

"This is stupid," he muttered, lip curling.

"You brought it up."

The waiter was bringing over their food shortly after, Reki thankful for the distraction. Glaring at his curry, he stuffed his face till his cheeks bulged, before finally looking back up at Langa. Langa, who loved food and was devouring the meal like he'd never eat again.

Sputtering a laugh, Reki covered his mouth so as not to accidentally spray curry all over the table.

"What?" Langa asked, mouth full.

"Definitely shouldn't kiss the way you eat, I know that for sure," Reki replied.

Langa was not impressed.

"Why do you care about kissing anyway?" Langa asked, once he'd gotten through at least half of his curry. "I've never heard you talking about it before. Or girls." Not seriously, anyway.

"I dunno," Reki said as he stretched upward, cracking his back. "Gotta grow up some time."

Langa was doubtful. "I'd rather skate."

"Me too," Reki agreed. "But still, I don't want to end up like Shadow either—twenty-five and probably the worst kisser on the planet."

Langa smiled, just a bit.

"How does a person even go about kissing practice?" Reki said aloud and sat back thoughtfully, his gaze turning to the ceiling. He supposed he could just… kiss his pillow or something, but that didn't sound very realistic. And also was incredibly weird. He did not want to make-out with his pillow. There was probably some kind of doll in one of those sex stores that would be more useful, but that sounded even worse—and more pathetic—than his pillow.

Maybe he could just… never kiss anyone. Ever.

"By kissing people," Langa said to his previous question.

"Easier said than done."

He shrugged and kept eating.

Who would even be interested in kissing him? And would he, Reki, even want to kiss them back? It was an awfully intimate thing to do with someone he didn't know or even like very well. Who _did_ he like? None of the girls in his class, that was for sure. And none of the girls at "S" either, though they'd probably be more willing than any of his classmates.

"It's hopeless," he inevitably decided.

Having finished his meal, Langa was reaching across the table with his chopsticks to finish what remained of Reki's.

"Hm?" he asked.

"There's nobody I would ever even think about kissing for practice," he said, slumping in place. "I'd rather kiss you."

Swallowing hard, Langa's pale cheeks went bright red and he coughed.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he choked out. "Just… ate too much."

"Don't you always?"

"I like food!"

Reki laughed and flicked a crumb at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am, sliding sexily into this fandom, ready to write about some dumb boys making some dumb decisions. Truly one of my favorite pastimes.
> 
> Feel free to follow me on twitter or tumblr. Name is SkayLanphear for both.


	2. Chapter 2

"I have an idea," Reki said, as he rolled in front of Langa, who'd been waiting for him at the school entrance. Despite his many and varied strategies at avoiding getting caught when they skated on school grounds, Reki hadn't been so lucky that day and been stuck in the admin office after classes.

Naturally, Langa had waited for him.

"Really?" Langa asked, perking up as he dropped his own board to the ground to head off.

Reki having ideas was always a good thing, in Langa's opinion, because his ideas were always the best—as far as food suggestions, or skateboard designs, or where they should skate their afternoons away, or how they should avoid their teachers at school. These ideas didn't always work out, but that didn't mean they were bad. Poorly executed, generally, when they found themselves in hot water, but always topnotch otherwise.

"Yes!" Reki said intently, the two of them weaving side by side, occasionally kicking off for more momentum. "I have a solution to the kissing problem."

Wheel catching on a crack in the sidewalk (a crack that he normally avoided with ease), Langa lurched and had to throw his back leg out to catch his balance, leaving him to stumble as his board went squirrely.

"What?" he asked, once he'd righted himself.

Reki had stopped to look back at him, frowning slightly in concern at Langa's uncharacteristic clumsiness.

"I have a solution to our kissing problem," Reki repeated, as if doing so would somehow make this all the more coherent.

Langa, for his part, hadn't even realized there _was_ a kissing problem. It'd been nearly a week since they'd had their short discussion on the topic, Reki having failed to bring it up since. For which Langa had been grateful, as the idea of Reki kissing… other people… left him vaguely nauseated.

"We have a kissing problem?" Langa eventually asked. More like Reki had a kissing problem, as Langa had never thought to include himself in the equation.

Reki huffed. "Yes! We're both losers in comparison to Shadow, remember?!"

Slumping, Langa decided not to comment, instead setting his focus on the sidewalk as he pushed ahead at Reki's side. Generally, when Reki was going on about being bothered, it was best to let him get it out of his system before saying anything.

"The way I figure it," Reki started, "we're both gonna be making a mess of things if we just throw ourselves out there and start dating girls without any proper preparation."

Start dating girls? When, exactly, did Reki intend to start such things at all? Langa was pretty content to not date girls anytime soon. Or ever.

"So, we should put our focus on a study plan before we even set foot in the dating scene. Make sure we know our stuff before opening the floodgates. Which, I know, doesn't make sense because how are we supposed to get good at kissing if we're not out practicing with actual girls?"

They skated around a corner, Reki pulling out in front and whipping around so he was pushing himself backwards, assumedly so he could face Langa directly.

"Thing is, we don't _need_ actual girls."

Langa frowned, not at all liking where this was going. He knew the Japanese sex industry was a tad crazier than anything in Canada, but he wasn't down for macking on any sort of rubber doll or mannequin. If that was where Reki was headed, he might just have to be honest and tell his best friend he wasn't as inexperienced as Reki assumed he was, if only to get out of it. Which was a strange, foreign notion, as he hardly never, if ever, wanted to escape one of Reki's brilliant plans.

"We don't need girls," Reki continued, voice a tad quieter as he gestured between the two of them, "because we have each other."

Langa had… no idea what he was talking about. "What?"

"We could just practice with each other," Reki murmured. "Until we figure it out."

Eyes popping wide, Langa was certain his heart stuttered to a stop, his whole body going cold with shock.

Was Reki—Was his best friend— _honestly_ suggesting that they… kiss each other? For kissing practice?

"Oh, c'mon, don't make it weird," Reki scolded, practically pouting.

Unfortunately, it _was_ weird! It was also super fucking _gay_! Which, okay, Langa would be fine being all sorts of "gay" with Reki, just not under _false pretenses_!

"I don't…" Langa's eyes narrowed in suspicion, "… understand…"

"Think about it," Reki said excitedly. "Girl lips and boy lips aren't really that different, right? So if we just practice with each other, then we'll be leaps and bounds ahead of Shadow by the time we actually end up kissing a girl."

Langa was only growing more and more confused. Was Reki really missing one of the biggest, central details of what he was suggesting? The fact that—whether boy and girl lips were the same or not—they were still both boys? Which, again, Langa was _more_ than fine with, but by how Reki was talking, they were definitely not on the same page in that regard.

"I just want to say this as plainly as possible," Langa said slowly. "You _are_ suggesting that _you_ and _I_ start kissing… right?"

Was this some kind of fucked up fever dream? Because he _didn't appreciate it_! His heart was hammering now, like it might burst straight out of his chest. To the point where he instinctively reached up and gripped at his t-shirt.

"For practice," Reki reasoned simply, like it all made perfect sense, but when Langa just kept staring at him, he frowned. "I don't mean in, like, a gay way. Just friends helpin' each other out. Is— _Is_ it weird?"

Closing his eyes against the sheer and unrelenting mental agony that was pulsing through his brain, Langa held his hands up in a prayer, just in front of his lips, and took a preparatory breath. "Yes," he strained to say, despite how painful it was. "It is kind of weird."

Reki wilted, his cheeks flushing. "Oh… I guess I figured if it was just between the two of us, it'd be fine…"

Begging to whatever god might exist that he be granted strength, Langa tried to figure out what he could possibly say. Unfortunately, words weren't exactly his forte, even in English, and so trying to parse them out in Japanese was all the more challenging considering how choked he felt at the idea of being allowed and encouraged to _kiss Reki_.

"Unless it makes you uncomfortable," Reki said suddenly, as if he was only then entertaining such a thing to be possible. "I totally get if it does, I guess. I just assumed that, since you're from Canada and people over there are way more open than here that it wouldn't be a big deal to you, especially since we're just friends and it wouldn't mean anything, but—"

"That's not it," Langa cut in, trying to figure out the best way to not say, and yet still explain, that he was currently going through a cerebral conniption at the very thought of kissing Reki. Reki, who was his best, most cherished friend, and who he was also hopelessly in love with and who was now suggesting that they start kissing each other. For practice. Because it _wasn't gay_.

But Langa was so gay. He was so, _so_ gay.

"I'm just…" Langa took in a deep, calming breath, "… considering."

"Oh," Reki said, like his bubble of paranoia had been popped.

Precious, innocent, _good_ Reki, who had no idea the anguish he was putting his best friend through.

"It's a good idea, right?" Reki continued, grinning like he was some dastardly mastermind. Maybe he was. Maybe that was why Langa was so desperately unprepared. "We spend so much time together anyway, so it should be easy to add this in. We'll be the best kissers ever. And Shadow and Miya are going to eat their words!" He laughed manically.

" _I'll eat your face,_ " Langa muttered.

"Huh?" Reki turned curious. "Why do you do that? You know I can't understand much English."

"I said it's a great idea," Langa said simply, already kicking himself. He should put a stop to this whole thing, because that was the rational, straight thing to do. Only Reki could concoct such a plan and think it was totally normal and somehow not gay. And only Reki would then be determined to follow through and somehow convince Langa that the two of them kissing really wasn't gay.

Oh no, Langa was agreeing to kiss Reki and it wasn't in a gay way.

Why? _Why_?! Why was he doing this to himself…?

"So we're gonna do it?" Reki clapped his hands together at his success. "I knew you'd see the genius in it. As usual, you and I will be unstoppable together. We'll be so great at kissing we'll go down in the record books. We should probably practice flirting too, so we can actually get girls to kiss us in the first place. If we can't do that, then practicing anything will be pointless."

"Sure," Langa choked out, his soul otherwise leaving his body.

Shoving off on his board once again, Reki took off down the street, while Langa drooped and rolled on behind.

"But _how_ should we do it?" Reki was saying, continuing to talk all the while they skated toward his house. "Obviously, we can't be seen. People will get the wrong idea if they don't know _why_ we're kissing. That'd kind of defeat the purpose, yeah?" Reki asked, throwing a careless smile over his shoulder. "If everyone saw us, then they'd think we _were_ gay, and then we'd definitely have problems with girls."

"Yup," Langa squeaked out. "That's true…"

"Hmm, well, my shop is probably fine then, and—Oh! Speaking of!" Reki paused only long enough for Langa to catch up. "I was watching you skate yesterday and I noticed one of your wheels is a bit off. I can fix it tonight, if you want."

Langa glanced down at his board, blinking back the whiplash of the subject change and unsure if he was thankful for it or not. "Alright," he agreed, attempting to sound as normal as possible despite… literally everything.

"Sweet! I should probably have a look at all your wheels, then. The way I designed your trucks makes the stress on the wheels totally different than on a normal board, so…"

Langa didn't normally zone out when Reki was talking. He loved listening to Reki talk. His passion for skating and his knowledge and excitement made Langa just as excited. It was infectious. Yet, he found himself unable to help it in those moments, his insides feeling acutely bloated and overwhelmed. Their previous conversation had to be a dream, it just had to be. There was no way Reki had come up with such a ridiculous idea and somehow convinced himself that kissing his best friend wasn't gay.

Then again, maybe that was why it'd taken him a whole week to rationalize it.

Oh god, and now Langa had agreed to it. He'd really agreed to whatever insane plan Reki was concocting. He'd done plenty of stupid things, Langa could admit. Like racing with his feet duct-taped to a skate deck, or agreeing to race Adam at all, but this was at the very top, he was certain. If this "plan" came to fruition, then yes, it'd no doubt be a thrill and exciting and adrenaline-inducing, but Langa wasn't sure he could actually survive this time. Reki went on about how dangerous Adam was, but he had absolutely no idea how dangerous _he_ was. Langa would be lucky if he survived this ploy without suffering severe heart failure. Or brain failure.

Fuck, this was bad. This was very, very, _very_ bad.

Yet, he couldn't bring himself to say anything. He'd kind of, sort of, tried to object when Reki had initially brought it up, but that had been before he'd agreed to it. How was he supposed to back out now? Langa didn't back out of anything! Besides, it was so… tempting. He had no idea how they were going to go about kissing each other, but, goddammit, if this was the only way he was going to get the chance to kiss Reki, then…

Then he might as well do it. He could let himself have this one thing. Couldn't make his personal situation worse than it already was…

… Right?

It didn't take them long to arrive at Reki's house, Reki chatting all the while and Langa thankful he was normally so quiet that his inability to listen went undetected. He hardly even noticed when Reki lifted the door to his shop and then retrieved Langa's board, working diligently away at it and chatting, chatting, chatting. Langa found himself needing to lean a steadying hand on one of the work tables, unable to break from his daze.

That was, until Reki's repeated insistence finally shattered his self-inflicted torture bubble of regret and underlying anticipation.

"Langa!" he practically shouted.

"What?" Blinking, Langa glanced quickly around the shop, before zeroing in on Reki standing directly across from him.

"Dude, have you been zoned out this whole time?" Reki asked.

"No," Langa lied.

Reki was clearly skeptical, but moved on. "Well, anyway, as I was saying, how do you think we should do this?"

"Do what?"

"Langa!"

"What?!"

Reki sighed. "The new plan," he said firmly.

Oh, _that_.

"I don't know," Langa rebuked, hoping he didn't sound as defensive as he felt. "It's your idea."

"But you're part of it!"

Langa shrugged.

On the other side of the table, Reki huffed and continued tinkering.

Trailing his finger down the woodgrain of the tabletop, Langa tried his best to cork the fluttering thrill that was threatening to explode inside his chest. It'd do him no favors to lose it whenever Reki so much as brought up the kissing thing—he'd never get to the actual kissing part. Besides, he didn't want to be too obvious about his actual feelings, which meant he had to keep his shit together! Not fall to pieces whenever—

Hands flat on the table, Reki pushed himself up and moved forward, closing in before Langa even had the chance to realize what was happening. And when he did finally get to that point, it was long, long too late. Leaning over the work table, Reki closed the distance between them in but half a second, his lips pressing chastely against Langa's own.

Eyes wide, Langa did… nothing. He couldn't pull himself together fast enough to do anything, except register the softness of Reki's lips, with just a hint of warm wetness in the crease between the top and bottom. It was barely a kiss, really. More akin to the type of touch little kids shared on the playground when they were playing at being adults and didn't know any better. Langa had, by all rights, shared far more intimate, intense kisses with other people, and yet…

And yet he was still left in a state of breathless shock, his thoughts unrolling like a broken tape even as the long seconds of Reki's kiss ticked on and on and _on_ , both of them staring at one another. So close, like they had been so many times before—leaning into one another, whispering to each other, laughing together. How many times had their lips nearly brushed by default of their proximity? How many times had Langa stared at the lips now pressed to his own and _wanted_? Wanted so badly he _ached_.

It lasted an eternity and not long enough all in one, Reki pulling back before Langa had the chance to fully grasp the moment. He was left with a vague stamp across his own lips—the barest amount of wetness left in Reki's wake, just enough to line a fraction of his lower lip. Wetness that was evaporating within seconds.

"See?" Reki said as he shrugged, having retreated to the other side of the table. He was grinning, like it was all so easy. "Not that weird, right?"

He had no idea just how much inside Langa was sparking. He had no idea the magnitude of his power over him.

He had not the slightest clue.

"Ugn," Langa said, uncertain at all what word he'd been aiming for. Maybe none. He had no idea what he was doing, or what was happening. His brain was falling all over itself.

"Probably be more helpful if you kiss back, though," Reki continued, his focus dropping back down to Langa's board.

He… He had to have some idea of what he was doing, right? Langa couldn't believe his best friend could honestly be so obliviously coy. "More helpful if he kissed back?" Change his tone a bit and that was a downright teasing thing to say. Reki was _telling_ him to kiss him back, was _asking_ him to. Yet, somehow, he was as innocent as a child about the whole thing. It was… torturous. Maddening. Of all the stupid things Langa had ever done, this was what would do him in. Reki had him in his net, fully caught, no escape. Langa _knew_ he did, and the irony of it all was that Reki had no idea.

One barely-there kiss and Langa was but a fool with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Then again, who was he kidding? He'd fallen a long time ago. He was as good as dead, ready to be buried. Completely splayed out and at Reki's mercy.

Reki, who flicked his gaze back up to Langa's own.

"Should we try it again?" he asked.

Swallowing hard, Langa reached up and gripped hard at his shirt over his chest. " _I am so fucked,_ " he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still trying to figure out how to characterize these boys, but I hope it's going well so far. Neither one of them fits into strict archetypes (which is good), but it means I have to actually work to characterize them. Like Reki, he's not actually stupid in this fic, but he does tend to overthink things to the point of getting normal priorities mixed up. Which, given his anxiety in the actual show, I think is possible. Reki wants what he wants, but is also unwilling to step outside what he perceives as a safe space, so he's going to rationalize his "idea" until it fits, or something along those lines. 
> 
> Poor Langa is just a gay disaster. 
> 
> Anyway! Hope you enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

Reki wouldn't necessarily say he was a "serious" guy—he knew he was prone to dramatics on occasion and he definitely enjoyed a good laugh—but as far as things he set his mind to, he was exceedingly invested. Like skating: it was fun and he enjoyed it, sure, and it was that enjoyment that made it decisively easy to be serious about it. Not in the vein that he wanted to be the best or whatever (Langa, on the other hand…), but that he wanted to learn and grow. He took _having_ a good time very seriously. Or like his skillset in building boards—it was fun, but he was also excessively serious about it. If people were going to be using his boards, then he was obligated to take it seriously.

Therefore, it should be expected that he approach his Kissing Plan with much the same attitude. He knew it was a bit out there, what he'd proposed to Langa—at least conceptually. He'd even called himself crazy, when the idea had initially popped into his head. Yet, the longer he'd pondered it, the less insane it'd seemed. He and Langa were best friends—nearly inseparable. Miya and Shadow had once tried to tease them over this facet of their relationship, but the fact that both Reki and Langa were aware they were inseparable had pretty well wasted their efforts. If there was time for them to be together, then they were. It really was that simple.

With that in mind, Reki had come to the conclusion that he and Langa using each other for kissing practice was only logical. Why _should_ it be weird when they were so close anyway? Just because they were doing it didn't require that it mean anything, and so long as they were both on the same page, no harm. If there was anyone Reki would be okay with seeing him at his worst, it was Langa—be it at kissing or anything else. He trusted Langa and he assumed Langa trusted him. No, they hadn't known each other that long, but they'd just… clicked, right from the get-go. The whole kissing thing, then, shouldn't be a challenge. Kissing only mattered when it _meant_ something, right? So there was nothing weird about him and Langa learning with each other. And it certainly didn't mean they were gay. Reki wasn't "attracted" to Langa. Yeah, Langa was hot and had beautiful eyes and a sort of quiet, demure smile, etc… but these were things that Reki was able to acknowledge factually, not because he was harboring secret "gay feelings" for his best friend.

In fact, it was his transparency in being able to recognize all the great things about Langa that made him comfortable with his plan in the first place. He knew where he stood, he knew where Langa stood, so there was no reason to get worked up.

Langa, however, _did_ get worked up, so Reki had decided that maybe he'd have to take it slow. The first time he'd leaned in and kissed him, he'd gone board-stiff and red all over. Which Reki supposed was only expected given that they were kissing. It was like getting injured when learning how to skate—it was inevitable due to the nature of what they were doing. Kissing made people nervous and caused blushes—Reki had blushed too. That was only expected. Thus, the sooner they got used to it, the sooner they could start honing their skills.

He'd suggested—after their "first kiss"—that they try again, but Langa had turned such an even deeper shade of red that Reki had decided it was probably a bad idea.

"We'll just take it one day at a time," he'd said, laughing when Langa had groaned and smacked his hand against his forehead.

So that was what he did. Initially. One kiss a day.

As he'd already made clear, people seeing them would be problematic for their end goal, so they could only practice when they were alone. Beneath the traffic bridge, where they skated when it rained, was a perfect spot their second go.

"I'm never gonna be able to get that high," Reki said, frowning as he stared up at the graffiti-star that Langa had long smeared with his hand. "I don't know how you do it."

"You will, if you really want to," Langa replied, like simply wanting something was the answer to every problem. Then again, when it came to Langa, that was generally how he operated. If he wanted to do something, he just did it. Reki sometimes wondered if there was anything Langa was afraid to do, or to act on. The guy was seriously so carelessly fearless that Reki oftentimes felt more like a babysitter, and he wasn't exactly a paragon of good decisions himself.

It was kind of infuriating, actually, because Langa was so attractive and well-dressed that no one assumed he had any delinquent-like tendencies until they actually got to know him. Somehow, he even made skateboarding look classy. Whereas everyone assumed Reki was up to no good from the start.

"I do want to," Reki said, as he poked at the the raw scrape on his arm, which he'd acquired during his last failed attempt at the jump. "But maybe not tonight." He'd had a go at it at least ten times, which was probably enough for one day.

"Okay," Langa said, sounding almost too agreeable. Which must mean it was getting close to dinner, because that was the only time Langa was happy to put down his skateboard—when he was hungry.

"Before we leave, though," Reki said, board hanging at his side as he took one large, exaggerated step closer to Langa, only half an arm's length between them. "Can I kiss you?"

He did his very best not to laugh at the way Langa's eyes went wide, his pale skin rushing with red. He even brought his hand to his chest, like he was affronted by the very idea.

Reki rolled his eyes. "You're so dramatic." A funny thing to call Langa, because he was anything _but_ dramatic, at least to the untrained eye. Reki was not untrained, however, and so he knew that Langa was actually one of the most dramatic people around. Obsessively passionate about good skaters (anyone good at anything, really), always whining when it came to food, _passing out_ at the sight of blood. If anything, his typically neutral expression was a dramatic show unto itself.

"You can't just say that," Langa muttered through his teeth.

"Why? You know the plan."

"Because it's… surprising."

"Okay, let me try again." Reki cleared his throat. "Oh, delicate and sensitive Princess Langa, I come to you now to warn you that I am going to ask a question in relation to the aforementioned plan, so do prepare yourself and let me know when you're emotionally equipped to _deal with it_!"

"That's not funny," Langa said flatly.

"Are you emotionally equipped?"

Langa's face took on the same flatness as his voice. "Yes."

"Then I'll ask again—can I kiss you?"

Expression breaking instantly, Langa groaned and sank down into a crouch, his hands coming up to cover his face as it blossomed with red all over again.

"You knew what I was going to say!"

"I know!" His words were slightly muffled by his hands.

Reki sighed. "I'm starting to see why this kind of practice is so necessary—you'd be a complete embarrassment with a girl."

"This isn't the same thing!"

"No, this should be _less_ embarrassing!"

Looking to the side, Langa pouted.

"So can I do it or not?"

"Not now!"

"Why?!"

"Because it feels weird now!"

"It's going to keep feeling weird unless we buckle down and do it!" Reki pointed severely at the ground, as if that would somehow cement his point.

"If you hadn't said it the way you did…"

Reki clicked his tongue—this was hopeless. "How else am I supposed to ask?"

Finally, Langa looked up at him, as he was still crouched down on the pavement. "Just… don't?"

"Don't ask?"

"Yes."

"Won't that make it more surprising?" Reki asked critically.

Langa thought long and hard. "Yes. But all the surprise will come after it's done."

That was valid, Reki supposed. "Alright, I won't ask you. I'll just do it."

Langa made a humming noise, like he was both satisfied and displeased at the same time.

"Anyway, should we go out to eat or are we heading home?" Reki asked, the mention of food perking Langa up instantaneously.

"Let's get ramen!" he said, springing to his feet and turning on a smile.

"Sounds good. We'll really have to book it, though." Lip curling, Reki stared beyond the cover of the bridge, where the rain was pounding hard and loud upon the city. "We could…" his sourness turned to a grin, "…have a race?"

"A beef?"

"Exactly."

Langa dropped his skateboard to the ground with a very firm sense of finality. "I love beef."

Sniggering, Reki decided to take advantage. Dropping his own board to the ground, he pushed himself very quickly into Langa's space. "Sure you do," he said, his heart skipping a beat as he leaned in and placed a fast peck on Langa's determined lips. It was a short kiss—less of a kiss than their first—but it had the desired effect.

Langa went red and stiff all over again, giving Reki the barest of advantages as he pushed himself out into the rain.

"Reki!" Langa yelled after him.

He didn't stop, instead laughing as he skated off.

The third time Reki kissed him, he did exactly as Langa had said and didn't offer any kind of warning at all.

"Agh, it's such a waste that we have to go back to class," Reki said, leaning back on his hands as he stared up at the clear, blue skies. Beside him, Langa silently nodded and used his chopsticks to tug Reki's bento box over the space between them, until it sat in front of him instead. He then went about meticulously eating the remaining corner of rice and pickled bean sprouts Reki had left (because he didn't like them). "We could be out enjoying the sun or at the skate park before all the little kids get there."

"You wanna skip?" Langa asked, part of a sprout hanging down from the corner of his mouth.

"We _can't_ ," Reki moaned. "My mom said that if I got another notice, she'd lock my skateboard up in my shop and then lock my shop too."

"Lame."

"Yeah, exactly." Huffing, Reki stretched his legs out in front of him and watched as a chittering group of girls—the only other ones left on the roof aside from Reki and Langa—stood from their corner and headed for the door. The shifting wind ruffled their uniform skirts and half of them reached down to stop the fabric from flying about, exposing them.

Lips pooching, Reki pulled his gaze over to Langa. He was very determinedly picking the remaining rice grains from inside Reki's lunch with his chopsticks, tucking them one at a time into his mouth like a bird picking seeds out of a feeder. Grinning, Reki watched until he'd completely cleaned the bento box, after which he re-checked his own lunch bag for any remaining bits, shook his carton of milk to see if any was left, and then listened in on Reki's thermos. All were bare and dry.

Shoulders slumping, he was soon staring flat out across the rooftop.

"Guess we should head inside," Reki muttered, making no move to do so.

Langa grunted.

Continuing to stare, Reki found his gaze tracing the sharpness of Langa's profile. His blue hair was drifting lazily in the breeze, while his pale, snow-white skin was slightly red from exposure to the sun. He must have forgotten to apply sunscreen that morning—Reki would have to buy him some when they got off school, else he'd be beet red by the end of the day. Not that red didn't look good on him…

"Hey," Reki said quietly, his heart beating a little faster.

Langa merely "hmmed" in response, not even bothering to look his way.

Glaring, Reki said, "Hey!" a little louder.

Skeptical, Langa finally turned toward him. "What?"

Leaning in, Reki quickly pressed his lips to Langa's, closing his eyes this time. Weren't people supposed to close their eyes when they kissed? He supposed it was less stressful, not having to watch the way he knew Langa's blue eyes were blown wide, though he did rather miss seeing his face flood with color. He'd definitely be far redder than his sunburn.

But it did allow him to focus more fully on Langa's soft lips. Warm from the heat and slightly chapped, but still plush against Reki's own. Slightly rigid, because Langa's reaction to being kissed was always to go rigid. Which Reki supposed was forgivable given that they'd only kissed twice before.

Allowing the contact to last a few seconds beyond any of their previous efforts, Reki heard the slightest whisper of a pop as their lips parted, eyes once again fluttering open.

Langa looked just as he'd anticipated—red and shocked.

"You're so predictable," he said as he grabbed up his stuff and stood.

Langa's mouth fell open and closed, reminding Reki acutely of a fish. Laughing, he reached out and ruffled that blue hair, whistling as he turned for the door.

" _Reki!_ " Langa hissed accusingly, as he scrambled up after him.

The fourth time they kissed, they were standing outside Langa's apartment complex. It was nearing dark on a Saturday night, as they'd stayed out as long as they could, skating. A normal pastime for them, especially on the weekends. Sometimes they stayed out even later, typically on "S" nights, but they'd already been chased down twice by the same police officer for being where they weren't allowed. When someone was going after them that persistently, it was a good idea to get scarce.

"Meeting up tomorrow just outside the train station?" Reki asked, the two boys standing beneath the awning over the main entrance into the complex. It was a quiet apartment building, mostly filled with old people, but more affordable than the complexes closer to the center of town.

"Yeah," Langa agreed.

"Sweet!" Reaching out, Reki clapped his hand swiftly with Langa's, the two then doing a fist-bump before Reki turned on his heel to head off. He was nearly dropping his board to the pavement when he came to a screeching halt. "Wait!" he called, whipping back around on Langa, who'd done the same at the sound of his call.

"What?" Langa asked, looking relatively startled.

"I forgot!" Tripping back, Reki surged up into Langa's personal space, his best friend stumbling back a single step, but still catching him by the arms. Which gave Reki just enough support to push in the rest of the way, able to lay a firm, pressing kiss to Langa's lips. Langa, who took in a quick breath at the contact, but didn't pull away. In fact, his grip on Reki's arms tightened, perhaps to hold them steady. And while he went initially stiff, Reki was pleased when he finally started to relax into it, right at the very end.

Pulling back, Reki grinned, slightly breathless and flushed as he shoved himself away again. Langa leaned slightly forward, all red and faltering after Reki as if trying to trail his touch. Which was another good sign, Reki figured—he was getting comfortable at last.

"See ya tomorrow!" Reki said as he slipped away fully, spinning on his heel and dropping his board to the ground.

"REKI!" Langa yelled, still in the midst of catching his balance as Reki shoved off.

"WHO THE HELL IS OUT THERE YELLING?!" Reki heard a voice shout from somewhere inside the apartment complex, which had him tripping with unrestrained laughter.

It got easier, from there.

Their fifth kiss, and the sixth, and seventh, and on, and on, got easier and easier. Until Langa didn't go stiff at all, even when Reki surprised him. Somehow, he got into the habit of grabbing Reki up under his elbows, holding him steady and tight, which did make escaping somewhat more challenging. But that was okay, Reki figured. They were doing this for practice, after all, so there wasn't any reason to rush away. That certainly wouldn't help either of them.

For nearly a week and a half, Reki kissed Langa once a day. Sometimes on the school roof, sometimes in the skate park when it was empty. Plenty of places so long as he was comfortable few people were there to watch. One morning, he did it very quickly as they met up to head to class, and then did it again that afternoon, having forgotten they'd already had a go at it. That was hardly bothersome, though, or so Reki figured. The more practice they got, the better. He started kissing Langa every morning, and at the end of every lunch when they happened to find themselves alone, and before they parted every night. And then he kissed him some more, at any time between that was convenient. So often did they start kissing that neither one of them even blushed anymore. Reki no longer made a big show of it and Langa no longer shied away. Langa _leaned in_ for their morning kiss, expecting it as they dropped their boards to the ground and whipped around the corner. He turned his head up after lunch, to catch a kiss when Reki stood first and had to lean down on his shoulders. He said "bye" in the evenings and caught the incoming kiss just as Reki was also saying "see ya."

It became… normal. Habitual. Thoughtless. Just something they did. By the time a month had passed by, Reki thought nothing of doing it, though he did begin to wonder.

Their little pecking kisses were… nice. He enjoyed them—as much as person could enjoy a kiss that didn't mean anything, he supposed. And he was starting to get the appeal—the allure of intimacy with another person, the warmth of having them so close, the soft wetness of their lips with his own. But he also knew that kissing could be a lot… more than what they were doing. Anyone could peck a kiss on another person. Moms did it to their kids, grandparents to grandkids. Some cultures did it as a greeting, others with their families and friends without a second thought. Knowing this made the kisses he and Langa participated in feel tame and typical. Which was… fine, but not exactly helpful to their end goal.

The thing was, Reki didn't know how to make it "more" than what they were doing. Mainly because he didn't know how to kiss beyond the casual. Did he just… hold it longer? Or was he supposed to open his mouth? But that seemed… weird, conceptually. He'd tried to study from movies, but those people generally just went for it. How did they get from where he and Langa were to the next level? While he played at the whole thing being simple and easy, he didn't have the confidence to just start… experimenting on Langa. He had the feeling he'd really mess up, even though kissing was something lots of people did.

He should probably just go for it, but…

"Hello?! Are you going to help me or what?!"

Starting, Reki flicked his attention to the customer he hadn't noticed walk in. With the weather being so hot, they'd propped the door open for the breeze, and so there hadn't been a bell.

"Sorry," Reki muttered as he straightened and pulled some of the wrinkles from his pink uniform shirt. "What can I do for you?"

"I have some stuff on hold," the customer—a big, beefy guy—said, voice flat and unimpressed.

"Roger that," Reki said as he collected the guy's name. "Wait here." Flipping around on his heel, he marched through the door into the back room, where Langa was currently posted. Like Reki, he was wearing the required pink shirt, his focus on sorting through the few stock boxes that'd been delivered that morning. He didn't even look up as Reki walked by.

Going to the shelves in the back, he started to scan the labels for the name, just as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it out, he glanced quickly down at the new text.

Shadow: Coming to "S" tonight? Probably not. Gonna chicken out, cluck cluck cluck!

Reki growled.

"What?" Langa asked, his gaze still solidly focused on his box.

"It's stupid Shadow!" Reki said fiercely.

Langa sighed, finally bending up to look at him. "Why do you let him goad you?"

"I'm not letting him do anything!" Reki rebuked as he whipped around to turn his glare on Langa, because he needed to direct his irritation somewhere. "That jerk should just keep his mouth shut!"

"I didn't even think you two had a beef," Langa said.

"We don't! But maybe I ought to challenge him to one…" Lips pooching, Reki turned his glare on his phone.

"You could beat him," Langa said with the utmost confidence. So much confidence that Reki couldn't help smiling.

"It has been a while since I raced anyone…" Reki said thoughtfully.

Eyes sparkling, Langa pumped his fist in encouragement. "Do it!"

Grinning, Reki wavered only a second longer, before he was typing back. Thumbs moving fast, he layered his response with a great deal of insults and finished it out with the challenge. Which had his chest rushing, his heart skipping. 

"I'll beat him this time," he muttered fiercely and pocketed his phone.

"You will," Langa agreed and turned his attention back to his box.

Feeling even warmer at Langa's certainty, Reki watched his best friend for a few long seconds, admiring his pale forearms—revealed by his rolled-up sleeves—and the way he had to constantly push his hair behind his ears, when it fell forward into his face.

Langa was so… beautiful, it just wasn't fair.

Huffing, Reki shoved his hands into his pockets and steered himself back to the door. Only for Langa to call his name as he was reaching for the handle.

"What?" he asked, turning back to him.

Langa cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Confused, Reki stared at him, thinking long and hard. While Langa stared back, as if waiting…

Still somewhat uncertain, Reki moved back across the room, until he was standing over Langa. Reaching out, he placed two gentle fingers beneath his best friend's chin and tilted his head back. Before he leaned down and kissed him ever so softly. Langa didn't pull back, closing his eyes alongside Reki as he leaned into the touch just enough to balance their efforts.

Reki's heart skipped all over again, his whole body tingling at the light popping sound as they pulled apart a few seconds later.

Yet, as Langa opened his eyes, he retained that same flat, expectant look.

Reki frowned.

"While that was nice," Langa said, Reki's fingers still resting under his chin, "I feel like you probably came back here for something. Originally."

"Oh, dammit!" Reki hissed and stumbled around Langa to the shelves again.

Behind him, Langa laughed.

So yeah, Reki didn't quite know how to move on from their innocent pecks, but there was something to be said for how comfortable they'd become with the whole arrangement.

Yet, with comfort came ease, and with habits came unwitting carelessness. When Reki won his first race against Shadow that night, he rolled right up to Langa—pumped and excited and happy and flushed and breathless. Langa was smiling broadly, practically buzzing with his own glee, and without thinking, Reki tripped off his board and into Langa's arms. He was pressing his lips to Langa's even as his best friend caught him, meeting his advances with equal vigor.

It was only after he'd touched his lips to Langa's that Reki's eyes popped wide, the reality of what they'd just done echoing in the gasps behind him.

_… Shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh.
> 
> I think Reki's stubborn denial about what they're doing is REALLY going to bite him in the end. He's definitely gone the round-about way to justify the "not gay" part of their arrangement. Dumb boys.


	4. Chapter 4

Breath shaky, Reki stared at Langa, who stared back, silent. Their lips were still pressed firmly together, but the touch dissolved with the rise in tension. The seconds that passed felt like an eternity, Reki's heartbeat loud enough to thud in his ears.

This was bad. Very, very, very bad.

He needed to do something.

Finally breaking away, Reki whipped around on the crowd, smile plastered in place. Miya was there, at the front, green eyes wide with shock. While Shadow—who'd been yelling after Reki when he'd initially run into Langa's arms—was now gaping in astonishment. Their expressions were mimed by everyone else surrounding them, the cheers giving way to whispers and gasps.

Reki forced his voice up his throat and out through his mouth. "That was not what it looked like," he said quickly—probably too quickly, but he'd never been all that great at damage control of anything.

"Did you just kiss Snow?" some guy that Reki didn't know asked from somewhere in the crowd that he couldn't place.

"No—"

"Yes," Langa said behind him, his voice hollow and tense.

" _Shut up_ ," Reki hissed back at him. "Uh…" Trying to ignore the way his whole body was shaking like a leaf, he waded through the sparking disaster that was his thoughts, desperately trying to come up with anything that would be better than what he'd just done. "It was a bet," tumbled out of his mouth. "You know, because of the race."

"You won, though," said some girl. Reki cursed her, whoever she was.

"It—It was..." Fuck, he had no idea what to do. Tell the truth? Would that be better than the assumption that he wanted to kiss his best friend? Or was their kissing arrangement even weirder?

"It's true," Miya cut in suddenly and cleared his throat. "Reki won the race, but I dared him to kiss Langa for every time he fell behind Shadow, since he was being such an ass about how fast he could go."

"You _what_?!" Shadow gawped.

"It's just a bet," Miya said, shrugging.

"E—Exactly," Reki agreed. "So that's two kisses for Langa, right?" Still so shaky he could barely breathe, he turned back to his best friend, grabbed him exaggeratedly by his cheeks, and kissed him again, as quickly as he could. "And that's two," he said, as he whipped around again. Releasing a relieved sigh, he kept his smile stubbornly in place. "Wanted to get that out of the way as fast as possible."

Shadow was looking mightily affronted again, which Reki prayed would dispel any remaining tension.

"Why in the world would you dare him to kiss Langa?!" Shadow asked, still looking at Miya.

"Because Reki's always going on about how he'll keep his word no matter what, or try to, and I thought it'd be funny."

"Is this a joke to you?!" Shadow howled, laughter starting to seep up from the crowd. "This is 'S'! Not some grade school—"

"Whatever." Miya waved him off. "You lost, so…"

"What does that have to do with this!" Shadow was gesturing sharply at Reki and Langa, who remained silent, happy to let the conversation carry on without them. Heart still beating loud and heavy in his ears, Reki remained in place, unaware that he was still standing in front of Langa like a statue. He was more aware of the stares that continued to linger, and the whispers that were floating around beneath the laughter.

It was probably too much to hope for, that their lie would fool everyone. No doubt the rumor mill would be in full swing after this, everyone in "S" gossiping about how that one redhead that was constantly hanging around Snow had up and kissed the prince of the track. Twice.

Ugh, he was gonna be sick…

"C'mon." Langa's voice was in his ear, barely above a whisper, before he was reaching out and taking Reki by the sleeve. Tugged gently along, Reki allowed Langa to lead him through the crowd and back out onto the track where people were still filtering into the warehouse after the race. Plenty of them had seen Reki finish first, and so were calling out to him or cheering or booing, but Reki hardly registered any of it.

He was too busy dwelling on the huge mistake he'd just made, replaying the idiotic moment again and again as if he could somehow go back and stop himself from jumping into Langa's arms.

Who was he kidding? It didn't matter what excuse he came up with, nobody was going to forget this.

"Hey." It was Langa again, his hand having left Reki's sleeve to instead take his board from his hands. Which finally had Reki blinking back to reality.

Langa had steered him all the way up the track to the gates, where his scooter was parked. There were still quite a few people standing around, chatting, some of them ever-watching the two teenagers. Not wanting to meet their eyes—to realize how far word had traveled—Reki instead drew his attention to Langa. Which didn't, admittedly, make him feel that much better. Though there was clearly concern creasing Langa's expression, there was also something guarded. Defensive? Reki wasn't sure, but it was definitely disheartening.

"You wanna leave, right?" Langa asked, already packing their boards up in their shared bag.

"Yeah," Reki coughed out, taking Langa's spare helmet when it was offered to him. Waiting until Langa was seated, he then slung their bag onto his back and climbed on behind him. They zipped out through the gates shortly after, Reki only releasing a relieved breath when they were on the road and out of sight of the track.

Reki knew he'd fucked up. Badly. Langa was probably so angry. This whole kissing thing had been his idea in the first place and look what'd happened? He'd _kissed_ Langa in _public_! But not just in public, he'd done it at "S!" It was their shared place of interest and passion, and now he'd tarnished everything with his carelessness.

Stupid. _So_ stupid.

Berating himself nearly the whole ride, he only realized that Langa had skipped food when they were pulling up at the back entrance to his house. Reki's house, that was. Langa must really be angry, to have gone without food and to want to be rid of Reki so swiftly. They were never home this early on "S" nights.

Climbing off the back of the scooter as Langa was killing the engine, Reki silently pulled off his helmet, bitter and frustrated that he'd finally beat Shadow at a race, only to screw up so royally that he couldn't even enjoy it.

Langa remained on the scooter, his helmet pushed back as he frowned, stare heavy.

"Look, I'm really sorry, Langa," Reki started, head hanging as he flexed the helmet between his hands. "This is all my fault and—"

"It's not that big of a deal," Langa cut in, causing Reki to snap his head up in alarm. "I'm really not that worried about what happened."

It was Reki's turn to frown. "But you seem like you're…" Off.

"I'm just worried about you," he replied as he shifted back in his seat some. "It was a bit embarrassing in front of all those people, sure, but I wasn't that upset. I did… kiss you back." His cheeks flushed some, blue eyes darting away. "Initially, anyway."

"But this is the exact thing that wasn't supposed to happen," Reki persisted. "Now everyone is going to think…"

That defensiveness returned to Langa's expression. "What?"

"That's we're…" He gestured between them weakly.

"And that's a problem?"

Reki blinked stupidly. "Well, yeah."

Langa's eyes flashed. "Why?"

"Because we're… not?" Reki offered weakly.

"Oh, right." Langa looked away again.

"Look." Sighing, Reki reached up and rubbed at his headband, behind which he could feel a headache forming. "Maybe the next time we go to 'S,' you can bring a girl. That should fix the problem, and you'll have a lot easier time getting a date than I will."

Langa curled his nose. "I'm not gonna do that."

"Wha—Why not?"

"Because I don't care what anyone thinks."

Reki was skeptical. "Don't you get it? Everyone is going to think we're _gay_. And _in a relationship_."

"And I don't care," Langa replied. "People can think whatever they want. I'm not going to put on some big show—that's just stupid."

"Well, _sorry_ for trying to come up with an idea to undo the damage," Reki snapped.

"There's no damage," Langa rebuked. "People can think whatever they want—it doesn't affect us any."

"Except that it does," Reki reasoned. "Look, I get you're from Canada where things are different—"

"It's not that different…"

"—but Japan is way more conservative than the west. And while people don't bother each other in public, 'S' is totally different. It's full of idiots who think that being the strongest or the best or having the most chicks is the most important. That 'scene' isn't exactly open to… people being this 'kind' of different." Skating was hardly accepted by the general public as it was. Despite the sport finally being allowed into the Olympics, people continued to view it as the pastime of delinquents. Therefore, some within the skateboarding community were extremely protective of their rising image, as skating was getting more and more attention of late. With that kind of reputation on the line, those that would "tarnish" what some hoped to be a path to a good name were extremely frowned upon (had to try and "blend in," now that there was a potential path to approval). And given how pumped with adrenaline those at the track could get, Reki found it to be exceedingly unlikely that he and Langa could return without being bothered, at the very least.

"I still don't care," Langa said stubbornly. "Let people think what they want—it doesn't matter."

"Okay, _fine_ ," Reki replied. "I get it—you don't care."

"But _you_ do," Langa added sourly.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Reki had heard it in his tone, that he had plenty more to say on the subject.

"It means that you're letting the shitty things other people think get to you," Langa said. "Again."

Lips pursing, Reki glared at him.

They'd both apologized following the debacle of Adam's tournament, Reki having realized that he'd let his insecurities hurt their friendship, while Langa had realized much the same about his narrow-focused ambition. But afterward, they'd never brought it up again. They'd been a bit awkward around one another for a few days, but had eventually evened back out into normalcy.

This was the first time either of them had even touched on the subject—it'd been months.

"This isn't the same," Reki said through his teeth.

"It's exactly the same," Langa rebuked. "I don't get why you give a shit. Nothing anyone said about you was true back then, so why does it matter now? Why do you waste time thinking about it?"

"Because not all of us can walk through life being as 'stunning' and 'talented' as you," Reki replied shortly.

" _Are you fucking serious right now?_ "

"Don't do that," Reki growled. "You know I don't like it."

"I'll do whatever I want."

"That is being made abundantly clear," Reki hissed bitterly. "'Again.'"

Langa's eyes flashed once more, his lips pursing as he glared.

"It's the Snow Show after all—I'll just go along with whatever you want, because why should what I think matter?"

"That's not fair!"

"It's true!"

Langa was standing. "No, it's not. You're being a passive-aggressive prick!"

"And you're being a stubborn asshole!"

"Better than using my insecurities as weapons to get what I want."

That one hurt.

"Because being so bull-headed that you don't even realize how bad you're hurting the people around you is better? Oh, look at me, I'm Langa and I'm so great that what other people think of me doesn't matter," Reki mocked. "What a great luxury to have. I'll just hold everyone else to the same standard of confidence and when they can't meet it, I'll leave them behind."

"I never left you," Langa hissed, his finger pointing harshly up at Reki's face as he took a step closer. "You left me."

"Because you broke your pro— You know what?" Reki closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "No, we're not going back to this." He wasn't sure his heart could take returning to that place. The last thing he needed was a resurgence of the constant nightmares he'd had about Adam killing Langa. He was just thankful the race had never had the chance to happen. It'd been the perfect solution that had allowed them to make up without digging into all this bullshit.

"Maybe we need to," Langa rebuked. "Your insecurities are clearly a problem. And if we don't deal with them, this sort of thing is just going to happen again and again."

Another blow that hurt. A lot. But Reki kept fighting anyway. Better to be fighting than not talking at all, right? "You act like it's all my fault. Your pigheadedness is just as bad! It's like you can't be bothered with anyone else once you get something stuck in your head. Not all of us work that way!"

"You could if you stopped caring what other people thought all the time!"

"I can't stop caring, okay?!" he practically shouted. "And pointing out the fact that I can't and telling me how annoying it is doesn't help!"

"That's not what I'm doing! But, once again, your insecurities have you convinced that I'm some kind of heartless bastard!"

"This isn't all on me!" Reki snapped. "Sometimes, you are a thoughtless asshole!"

"Fuck you! You have no idea how much I—"

"Hey!" The back doors to Reki's house slid open, Mrs. Kyan appeared from the darkness. She was in her bed robe, her hair a mess, and her face was downright murderous. "Are you two trying to wake up the entire house? Because if you do, there will be brutal consequences for both of you!"

Shying back, Reki dropped his gaze to the ground, while Langa shifted his attention to the side.

"Sorry, Mrs. Kyan," he said quietly.

"Yeah, sorry, Mom," Reki added.

Taking a deep breath in through her nose, she looked pointedly between them before huffing and retreating back inside, the doors sliding shut behind her.

What was left in her wake was air so bloated with tension that Reki was certain it was going to suffocate him. Or maybe that was the pressure that had been building in his chest this whole time, threatening to throttle him as he swallowed painfully against it.

He knew there were two options—he could turn and march into the house, saying nothing and fearing that this would send the two of them spiraling in the same way they had during Adam's tournament. Or…

 _Or_ …

"Look," Reki coughed out, his voice thick despite how he tried to clear it. "I know that my… insecurities… can be a problem." Blinking a little more rapidly than he would have liked, he was downright ashamed of the shakiness that echoed in his words. "But you could at least _try_ to care."

Langa's gaze flicked up to his own. "I do care," he said quickly, looking wounded. "Why do you think I got us out of there as fast as I could?"

Right, he had done that, hadn't he?

"But I don't know… what else to do," he finished.

"You could just be nice," Reki rebuked. "And tell me how unreasonable I am _after_ I'm done freaking out." Unable to look Langa in the eyes, he stared down at his shoes, shame and embarrassment dropping atop his shoulders. He felt foolish, like he was asking Langa for something he had no business asking for. What he should do is take everything he was feeling and bottle it up for a few days—until he could act like nothing was wrong. That would be better for everyone. Muddying their friendship with his stupid problems wasn't going to help.

"Sorry," he strained to say. "I'm just being—"

"It's okay," Langa said, his voice almost too gentle. So gentle that it broke something in Reki, who was once again struggling to push back on the pressure behind his eyes. "I'm sorry I was being so stubborn. I didn't realize you were… freaking out."

Great. Perfect. Now Langa felt guilty because of something that was Reki's fault. He should have kept his big mouth shut.

"It's not a big deal," Reki said. "Don't worry about it—I'll just—"

"I am worried about it," Langa cut in. "Reki, how… how bad is your anxiety?"

"It's not," Reki said quickly. "Usually. Sometimes things just happen and I get worked up for a few days. Like I said, I'll be fine, so—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Langa asked. "What gets you worked up?"

"Nothing!"

"Reki…"

"I don't even know, okay? It's not an easy thing to explain."

"Well, try."

Reki scoffed. "You would say that."

"I'm trying to help."

"I don't need your help!"

"Why do you do this?" Langa asked, sounding almost helpless. "You're… closing up. You can't blame me for not understanding when you're shutting me out."

"It's not your problem, Langa."

"Maybe I want it to be my problem."

"You don't even know what you're talking about."

Looking frustrated again, Langa said, " _Why are Japanese people like this? Not all emotions have to be kept under lock and key! It's so annoying!_ "

"Did you just call me ' _annoying_?'" Reki asked, the foreign word somewhat familiar, but rolling hard off his tongue.

"No!" Langa said quickly. "I just—I'm trying to— _What did Mom say? That the way Dad used to, with her…_ "

"Please stop speaking English," Reki said weakly.

"Sorry," Langa said quietly. "I'm just… really bad with… words."

"You don't need to worry about this, really," Reki persisted. "This whole thing has been a nightmare. Let's just say goodnight and tomorrow we can pretend this fight never happened and—"

He didn't get the chance to finish his poorly concocted plan, as Langa had stepped forward, directly into his space. Which wasn't so strange as Reki had been very intimately invading Langa's space for the last month (and been prone to hanging all over him prior), but Langa had never been the one to initiate their "kissing practice" before. Reki instinctively shied away in response, taking a single step back, but it wasn't enough to clear him of Langa, who was wrapping his arms determinedly around his shoulders.

It didn't turn out to be a kiss, but Reki was caught up in Langa's embrace nonetheless, their cheeks and hair brushing as Reki found himself pressed firmly—chest to chest—with his best friend. Which wouldn't be so weird except that Langa never hugged him first. It was this key difference that had Reki going stiff, arms tense, heart racing.

"I know you're freaked out about what happened," Langa murmured into his ear, "but I promise it'll be okay."

Though Reki's aggressive thoughts were immediately disagreeing, jumping in with all sorts of "hows" and "whys" that would prove Langa wrong, he kept them to himself. Instead, he swallowed hard against the pressure that was once again flooding up through his chest, standing still only a few seconds longer, before he gave in.

It was nice—comforting—being held by Langa. No one was there to see them, to judge what they chose to do with one another, and so Reki slumped into him, his own arms coming up to grip at Langa's back. Burying his nose atop Langa's shoulder, he took in a shaky breath and closed his eyes.

Langa smelled… nice. Always did, even when he was sweaty and dirty from bailing. Crisp but subtle, echoing of evergreen and spearmint. Sharp, but like a comforting blanket in its familiarity.

Reki didn't want to push Langa away. He just… didn't know what else to do.

"Can we just…" he started, voice barely above a whisper as he nuzzled his nose into the crook of Langa's neck, "not talk about this anymore?"

"Reki…"

"Please?"

It took a few seconds, but Langa did eventually release a sigh of defeat, or perhaps momentary acceptance.

"I told my mom I was staying at your house tonight," he said, still continuing to hold Reki around the shoulders. "But I can go if you want."

Reki's own arms tightened and he felt almost sick as he said, "Don't go." Like he was pleading with him. Pathetic. "Can't we just watch skate videos and eat leftovers until three in the morning like usual?"

Langa released another sigh. "Yeah. That's fine."

It wasn't and they both knew it, but Reki wasn't about to be left to sulk alone if he could help it. The time he'd spent avoiding Langa when they'd been fighting about Adam had taught him the value of keeping his best friend close.

They stood there, quiet, for nearly a minute more, until Reki realized that Langa was going to keep hugging him all night if he didn't do something. Supposing there was something to be said for his friend's resolve, Reki did eventually peel himself away, feeling a bit less like he might break down in tears.

Still, he couldn't bring himself to look Langa in the eyes. Quiet and conscious of his mother's warning, they headed inside, raided the fridge, and retreated to Reki's room. Langa was over so often that it was nearly expected he finish off any and all leftovers sometime during the end of the week—doing Reki's mother a favor as she was constantly going on about how the family never finished off everything fast enough (Reki had once told her that maybe she just made too much food, which had earned him a severe ear-pinch). Once they'd dropped their boards and kicked off their shoes, they'd piled onto Reki's bed, laying side by side as Langa pulled up his phone so they could continue through their never-ending playlist of skate videos, all while Langa ate anything and everything Reki put in front of them, long after Reki himself had quit eating.

Thankful that it was dark aside from the glare of Langa's phone, Reki did his absolute best to be as normal as possible. He knew he failed, but Langa did as he'd asked and didn't bring up their argument or the debacle that had started it all. He was far more successful at acting as his typical self than Reki, which was calming in and of itself.

It was nearly three in the morning—Langa looking tired and having dropped his phone on his face three times—when Reki's own phone buzzed in his pocket. Flicking his attention from their current video, he pulled his phone up, lips pursing at the text message glowing back at him.

Miya: So…

Miya: Are you and Langa dating?

So much for trying not to think about it.

Not wanting to allow such a falsehood to fester, Reki started typing back.

Reki: No.

Reki: We're not like that.

Reki: Thanks tho, for helping with what happened.

Reki: I owe you.

Miya: Yeah, sure.

Miya: But, uh…

Miya: Why did you and Langa kiss if you're not dating?

Reki sighed, aware of the way Langa was looking at him out of the corners of his eyes. He ignored him and kept typing.

Reki: It's… kind of a long story.

Reki: What happened was an accident, tho.

Reki: Langa and I are definitely not a couple or anything.

Reki: It's not what it looked like.

Miya: …

Miya: You know you can tell me, right?

Miya: I get why you might want to hide the truth from some people, but I'm cool with it.

Reki: We're not hiding anything, seriously.

Reki: Langa and I aren't gay.

Miya: Okay…

Frustrated, Reki growled and again started to type, but before he could continue defensively trying to make his point, Langa reached out and grabbed his phone.

Reki hissed, "Hey!" and tried to make a grab for the contraption, but Langa held it out of reach as he scrolled through the conversation. "It's just Miya," Reki said sullenly. "Not that my texts are any of your business."

"'Not gay?'" Langa muttered, sounding irritated in that quiet, under-his-breath sort of way. " _Speak for yourself._ "

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I'm gonna start hitting you whenever you speak English. Now, give me back my phone."

"No." With a flick of his wrist, Langa tossed his phone into the darkness of the room. It must have landed face-down, because any light still emitting from the screen was doused.

"Really?" Reki was not impressed as he leaned up on his elbow, which was jabbed into his pillow. He was staring down at Langa, who'd returned his attention to his own phone.

"You said we're not talking about it," Langa reasoned. "And here you are, talking about it."

He almost said "With Miya," as if that should be the difference, but bit his tongue before he could. Poking and prodding the issue would only encourage them to start fighting again, and that was the last thing Reki wanted.

Succumbing, he collapsed back onto his pillow, forcing himself to watch the video still playing before them. It was a longer one, and as the bedroom fell quiet aside from the overlay of music (they had the volume down super low), Langa's arm soon began to sag again. Until his phone slipped from his hand and plonked him on the forehead.

"Ow…" He rubbed at the red spot.

"No more phone for you either," Reki decided as he snatched it up and tossed it across the room in the same manner Langa had his. It landed face-up, remaining ignited for the final minutes of the video. The two boys stayed in bed all the while, saying nothing and refusing to so much as look at one another. Or so Reki thought, only gaining the confidence to glance over when Langa's phone finally dimmed.

He wasn't the least bit surprised to see that Langa had dozed off.

"Wish I could sleep that well," Reki muttered and turned his attention to the ceiling. He already knew he was in for a sleepless night, the lack of distractions leaving him with nothing to do but stew.

This was exactly the kind of situation they'd meant to avoid. What point was there at all to their kissing practice if all the girls they could potentially date thought they were gay? Now, Reki didn't have a problem with the whole gay thing, but other people thinking he was gay was entirely counter-productive to his plan. They still had the girls at their school, he supposed, but none of them had ever shown any interest in Reki. Therefore, he doubted they'd be showing any interest in the future. Langa, on the other hand, was extremely sought after. He got at least one confession a month, usually more. Either via gifts or love letters or whatever. If it was chocolates, they usually made a habit of sharing them together, while Langa generally threw out all the rest.

"I'm not interested in dating girls," was all he'd say as a means of explanation. Which Reki thought was understandable. He, too, was not currently interested in dating girls—he'd much rather be skating. But, by the time he _was_ interested in dating, he wanted to be prepared.

Preparation that had backfired. They might as well give the whole thing up now. Clearly, Reki's idiocy could not be trusted with such a delicate arrangement, and with the rumors that were likely to start up at "S," it might be best to give the whole thing a wash.

Sliding a look over to Langa again, Reki listened as he grunted softly in his sleep, frowned, and turned over onto his side. Facing Reki now, he'd tucked his hand under his head, his mouth hanging slightly open.

How relieving it must be, to just bulldoze through life the way Langa did. Not caring at all what people thought, just doing whatever he wanted.

"Must be nice," Reki whispered, continuing to silently watch his best friend sleep.

What was it like to be Langa? All lean and beautiful and talented and effortlessly popular? He got so much attention just for being himself and Reki would be lying if he claimed it didn't bother him. Which was so toxic and unfair—Langa couldn't help being himself. Besides, joke was on everyone else, because the only people Langa really gave the time of day was his mom and Reki. Miya, Shadow, Cherry, and Joe too, but he was never so chatty with them as he was with Reki, if one would ever go so far as to call Langa "chatty."

Langa, in all his handsome grace, was _Reki's_ best friend. Even though Reki didn't have much to offer, that had to count for something.

That didn't, however, stop him from wondering what in the world Langa saw in him. It wasn't a question he normally asked himself—only when he was feeling particularly shitty. He knew, rationally, that it wasn't a fair question to himself or Langa, but it was there nonetheless, filtering around despite how he tried to ignore it.

Man, he'd really fucked up. This whole kissing practice plan had been a bust and he should have known from the beginning it wouldn't work. No wonder Langa had been so against it at the start. Langa, who hardly ever said no to anything Reki suggested.

If _Langa_ thought something was a bad idea, then it probably was.

Shifting onto his side as well, Reki cradled his head in the crook of his elbow and watched as one of Langa's stray hairs trembled against his easy breathing. It didn't stand a chance against his open mouth and was soon puffed out of place, dragging a diagonal line across his entire face.

Smirking, Reki reached out and ever-so-carefully pushed the hair back up behind his ear, his pointer finger barely brushing over Langa's soft skin. Despite being light with his touch, Langa still reacted. Shifting his head against the pillow, he sniffed and curled his hand into a fist.

It was stupid, but Reki couldn't help sniggering. Gently, he allowed his hand to come to rest along the edge of Langa's cheek, pushing the remaining loose strands of hair back along the side of his head. All while his eyes caught on those parted lips.

Their kissing practice was as good as over, but… what was one for the road? Close it all out with something besides the "S" track incident.

Hesitating a few seconds longer, Reki nearly backed out. But, then, this wasn't any different than what they'd been doing the last month. Besides, what would Langa think if he knew Reki was hesitating about something so incredibly easy?

Moving forward, eyes closed, Reki pressed his lips lightly over Langa's own. Softly, barely touching. He held the contact for maybe two seconds, before he was leaning back again.

Langa's blue eyes had fluttered open, half-lidded when Reki opened his own. His heart skipped at the sight, leaving him momentarily startled. Before he grinned and settled his head back atop his own arm.

"Sorry," he whispered, pulling his hand back. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Langa just blinked at him, still basically half-asleep. Yet, even so, he had the energy to reach out to Reki. Hand drifting through the vague darkness, he found Reki's headband with the tips of his fingers and tugged upward. The headband fell loose as he pulled it free of Reki's mop of red hair, before he tossed it lazily out behind him, onto the floor.

Reki cocked a skeptical eyebrow, but didn't object when Langa returned his hand to his hair, brushing it back and out of the way in much the same way he had Langa's own. He smiled then, in a small way, and slid forward in much the same fashion Reki had.

Though he was surprised, Reki closed his eyes as their lips met again. Langa never initiated, yet, after everything that had happened…

It should have been short—it always was. Langa did pull back, just slightly, but then he was going for it _again_. And this—this was different.

Because, oh… _this_ was a kiss.

Eyes falling closed again, Reki gasped in a slight breath as Langa pulled at his lips with his own. The bottom one first, causing Reki to part his mouth in surprise, thus making it easier for Langa to gently nip up at his top lip as well. Once, twice, pressing in on the third as Reki finally gathered himself enough to mimic the same motions in return. His hand instinctively came up, finding itself clutching at the front of Langa's shirt, which inspired Langa to scoot even closer. The hand he had in Reki's hair was still there, sifting through the locks, all of which Reki was as hyper-aware of as he was their lips, moving together. The tips of their noses brushed, as they were slotting themselves more flush together. Reki tugged on Langa's upper lip, just as Langa was doing the same to his lower, and the ensuing smacking noise sent blood rushing down between Reki's legs.

So that explained where the stereotypical kissing noise came from.

Brilliant.

Taking in a quick breath, Reki dove back in, cuddling even closer as he sought out Langa's lips. While Langa's hand drifted from his hair, fingers trailing along the back of his neck.

Reki held tighter to the front of Langa's shirt.

They broke apart again, breath splashing together, their lips hovering close. And then Langa was slowly dragging his hand down Reki's spine, over his shirt, and his tongue darted out to flick teasingly against Reki's top lip.

Fuck. Reki was bowing forward, Langa's fingers sending electricity bolting through his whole body. _Fuck!_

Clumsily—desperately—Reki pushed his mouth back into Langa's own—much harder than before—and their teeth scraped.

"Slow down," Langa said into his mouth. Reki tried to apologize, but then Langa was swallowing his attempts and they were kissing, kissing, kissing and Langa was flexing his hand over his back and Reki was gasping hopelessly for breath. And the noise, the _noise_! Their lips smacking together and apart, it was so loud in the otherwise quiet room, aside from their breathing. But, wow, did Reki like it. He liked all of it. No wonder people enjoyed doing this. Finally, after a month, he was starting to "get it."

"I thought you said you'd never done this before," Reki muttered when they parted for breath.

"Never kissed a girl before," Langa said and kissed him again, sucking on his bottom lip and causing Reki's breath to stutter.

"Coulda fooled me," Reki replied, daring to slide his tongue out along Langa's bottom lip, before copying his previous move and sucking that very same lip between his own.

Huffing, Langa pushed forward, doing as Reki had previously and deepening the contact, only without the teeth issue. He held Reki there, like he wanted to literally breathe him in, before he leaned back again.

"What is it?" Reki asked, their noses brushing as he nipped Langa's top lip between his own.

Langa pulled his hand back up to Reki's hair, returning Reki's light, insistent kisses only shortly, before he was turning his head so as to force Reki's lips to trail down the side of his face. Before he was pressing their foreheads together and audibly gulping.

"That's enough," Langa said suddenly.

Reki was exceedingly ashamed of the whine that left his throat, even as Langa snorted in response.

" _This is too much—I can't handle kissing you like this, fuck._ I'm tired," Langa whispered, even as he nuzzled Reki's cheek with his nose.

"This isn't enough to keep you awake?" Reki murmured. "Am I that bad?"

Langa smiled and Reki's heart did a sick sort of twist. "You're not bad at all, Reki," he assured, hand once again shifting through Reki's hair. "But I'm going to start getting sloppy."

"That's okay," Reki murmured meekly, barely catching Langa's lips again.

"Later," Langa insisted. "Please."

Rubbing his nose against Langa's in his nod, Reki gave in. He kept their foreheads pressed together, however, breathing heavily with his eyes closed.

Despite it all, he was not that surprised to crack his eyes open some minutes later and find Langa already fast asleep.

 _Slow down_ , Langa had said. Then, _later_. Like a promise. Like, maybe, their kissing practice wasn't doomed after all.

"Later," Reki whispered in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a little angsty drama, because that's the kind of writer I am. Poor Reki, he's doing his best. When I was first writing this, I was like, is Reki the type to cry? And then episode 9 came out and I was like, oh, huh, fancy that. And Langa, my goodness, a little sensitivity goes a long way, my guy. He's trying too, tho. I think both these boys have very different ideas about what is happening with their "kissing practice." Next chapter is a Langa chapter, so... we'll see.
> 
> If you guys wanna yell about the show with me, feel free to visit me on twitter--I'm usually chattier there than on my tumblr (easier to have convos). So far I don't have too many people to yell about the show with :(


	5. Chapter 5

Reki was already awake. Which wasn't so surprising to Langa, as Reki was the type to go to bed late and still be an early riser. Whereas Langa wasn't much for functionality when he was tired or just after he woke up. As a result, he was alone in Reki's bed. Reaching out, he touched the side where Reki normally slept and found it cold. So he'd been up a while.

Closing his eyes, Langa turned his head into the pillow and took a deep breath, doing his best to imprint Reki's scent into his nostrils—just as he did every time he stayed over. It was a sad, pathetic habit, but he'd been doing it for so many months now that he couldn't be bothered with the shame.

Reki smelled something like freshly sanded wood mixed with the dryness of tatami mats (which made sense as his house was full of tatami). There was also something sharp—reminiscent of ginger—that always stuck in his nose the longest and became stronger whenever Reki was sweaty or hot. From the pillow, though, it was subtle, familiar, and Langa smiled to himself as he breathed it in a few more times.

He was so pitiful. How much lower could he sink, really? He was in love with his best friend and had somehow gotten to the point the night before of nearly making out with him, yet it amounted to nothing. Thus, there he was, rolling around in Reki's bed like some desperate dog missing its owner.

He needed to tell Reki. The truth. Not about his feelings, but about the fact that he was… gay. While Langa wasn't usually the type to be guilty or regret overly much, it was starting to feel like his sexuality was a secret that mattered. Mostly because he and Reki were _kissing_ , but Reki thought they were both straight—a fact that had been made very clear by his texts with Miya.

Ugh, Langa didn't even want to think about those texts. He knew Reki had been on the defensive when he'd been answering them, so he would have refuted any label of being "gay" whether it was true or not. But just seeing it there, written out by him, the claim that he (well, both of them) wasn't gay had really stabbed a knife through Langa's chest. Which was also where the guilt was coming from, he supposed. If Reki knew his kissing practice partner was a very, very gay man, would he be uncomfortable with it?

Then again, if he was, that said more about Reki than it did Langa. Whether one of them was gay or not, they were still best friends. It didn't change anything, not in Langa's mind. Yet, it was the notion that maybe it would alter how Reki looked at him that kept him silent. He… didn't want Reki to be homophobic. And, frankly, given their activities of late, he felt pretty confident that he wasn't. But, then, Reki was pretty convinced that their "kissing practice" was an acceptably straight thing to be doing. To the point where Langa wasn't sure if it was or not. On the surface, it was definitely super, super gay, but if the people involved viewed it differently, then that changed the way people should understand it, right?

Who was he kidding? He had no idea. The only thing he knew with complete certainty was that he was in love with Reki and that he was the stupidest person alive for having agreed to mack on him for "practice." He should stop—put an end to the whole thing. But…

He _wanted_ to kiss Reki. So bad.

"Hey."

Reki's voice had him pulling his head up to look at the door, where Reki was standing with a humored smirk on his face. "Breakfast is ready, sleeping beauty," he said and gestured Langa out into the hall, just as he was turning to walk off.

Groaning to himself, Langa stayed in place a few seconds longer before giving in and pushing himself to his feet. Having slept in his clothes, his jeans and button-up shirt were a wrinkled mess. He tried to smooth them out some, but his efforts were for naught and he inevitably gave up. Dragging himself from Reki's room, he was yawning and rubbing his eyes as he stumbled through the hall and into the common area, at the back of which the door was slid open to reveal the hectically loud dining room.

Tripping—as he always did—over the slight lip between the rooms, Langa caught himself as a cacophony of young voices sang out, "Hasegawa is here! Morning, Hasegawa! Good morning, Hasegawa!"

Waving weakly at Reki's little sisters, he moved around the low-set table and dropped himself into his normal seat at the corner, beside Reki. The seats were akin to chairs without legs. Cushioned, with worn wooden backs. Far more traditional than the small dining set in Langa's home, which was high and bordered by normal chairs. Western chairs? He shouldn't call them normal—normal for him was different than normal for Reki.

Whatever.

"Good to see you, _Langa_ ," Tsukihi—Reki's fourteen-year-old sister (dark red hair, pigtails)—said as he sat down, smiling wide and batting her eyelashes.

"She has a crush on you," Reki had told him once.

Langa grunted by way of response and laid his head down on the table, eyes closing.

"You know he doesn't speak Japanese in the morning," Reki said beside him, sounding distracted. He'd been poking away at his phone when Langa had walked in.

"I can speak English!" Tsukihi said quickly. "I'm the best in my English class." She cleared her throat importantly. " _Good morning, Langa._ "

He grunted again, but didn't look up.

"Leave him alone," Reki said temperamentally. "You're so annoying. And quit using his given name—he's not friends with _you_."

"He said I could!"

"And I said you couldn't!"

"You're such a jerk!" She made a teasing sound and Langa imagined she was probably sticking out her tongue. Which would have Reki rolling his eyes.

"Stop fighting," Masae—Reki's mother—issued as she came in and set a few more bowls down on the table. "Hasegawa, get your head off the table."

Sighing, Langa pulled his head up and looked very miserable about it.

"And sit up straight," she continued as she walked by behind him, smacking him in the shoulder.

Folding his legs up under himself properly, Langa made efforts, knowing that he'd only continue to be berated if he didn't. Initially, Masae had been excessively nice to him, going on about how Reki "never brought friends over" and that he "seemed like a very nice young man." His prestige had apparently worn off, however, especially as he'd failed to be any sort of good influence. Reki had once told him that it didn't matter who was in their house, if they were under twenty, his mother would inevitably start treating them the same way she did her own children.

"Americans and their lazy posture," she went on to say, as she yanked Reki's phone out of his hands.

"Hey!" he called as she left the room again. "And Langa's not American, he's Canadian! I've told you that a million times!"

"Technically, Canada's _in_ North America," Tsukihi said smartly.

"'Technically,'" Reki mocked, "nobody cares what you think."

She growled.

Langa remained silent. He was accustomed to being the topic of conversation amongst Reki's family. Reki had once told him that his mom thought he was "interesting" because he was white, despite the fact that he looked more like his mom than his dad (the label of "white" felt weird, because back in Canada, it was the exact opposite. He'd always been "that one Asian guy with the snowboard"). "You're the only white person she knows," Reki had said. 

"I'm not white, though," Langa had objected. "I'm half Okinawan."

Reki had just shrugged.

Part of Langa thought that maybe he should be offended, but then, that required a lot of effort and he really didn't have the energy to care. Reki's family didn't mean anything by it and had come to treat him quite normally. It wasn't nearly as bad as school, where all the girls fawned over him despite knowing nothing about him, and the boys tended to be either enamored by or defensive toward him, especially in lieu of his "anti-social" personality.

"I thought westerners were supposed to be friendly?" he'd once overheard some guy in his class saying.

He'd almost snapped out that he was half-Japanese too, but then had decided it wasn't worth it. He'd inherited enough from his father that he'd always be seen as different. His mother had warned him about it, when they'd first come over. She'd said that it was hard for anyone that wasn't full Japanese to really integrate into Japanese society. He hadn't realized, at the time, what she'd meant, but the longer he was in Okinawa, the more he came to understand that to some Japanese people, he'd never really be Japanese.

He wasn't quite sure, yet, how he felt about that. Mostly, he was thankful for Reki, as he generally steered clear of the subject. Langa had wondered why at first, but eventually come to realize that Reki just… didn't think about it. Didn't care in the same way he didn't care about the other eccentricities people sported at "S." People at the track were generally outcasts and outsiders themselves, even without the added complication of being part "not Japanese." This gave Reki a leg up on all their school peers, because he was already exposed to a world that was far more tolerant than otherwise.

Which was why Reki's explanation about being seen as gay by the "S" population was so strange to Langa. Would the people at "S" even care?

He didn't get it.

There were a lot of things he didn't get, really. Best not to dwell. He'd much rather focus on breakfast, especially since Reki's mom always went above and beyond as far as making traditional meals every day. Just like how she went to the effort of packing Reki a legit bento box every morning. Not to say anything against his own mother, mind, but as she wasn't much of a homemaker, he hadn't gotten to experience much traditional Japanese food growing up.

Rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki, neatly sliced up fruit, natta (Langa didn't eat the natta though—didn't care for it). Sometimes there was fish, other times it was whatever was left over from the night before. No matter the case, everything was homemade. The fact that Reki's mom preferred they eat as much of it as possible was an added bonus, as she was always going on about how Reki never ate enough and he was lucky Langa was there to pick up the slack.

And Langa, well, he had little shame in eating as much as he could before Reki was inevitably grabbing him by the arm and dragging him from the house.

"Bye, Langa!" Tsukihi called as he was towed back to Reki's room. He didn't bother with a response.

Grabbing up their skateboards, Reki was going on about getting to the skatepark on the other side of town, which sounded like a good idea to Langa. It was only after they'd been moving at a far faster pace than usual that Langa came to realize Reki was avoiding him in plain sight.

He didn't want to talk about yesterday. Unfortunately for him, Langa wasn't down for that attitude. Nor were the few people who also happened to be at the skatepark, as it would turn out.

There were two skateparks that they used predominantly—one near their school that tended to cater to the less experienced, and one across town that drew in the more "serious" skaters. Because of this, some of those skaters also attended "S," though none of them talked about it.

"I feel like people are staring at us," Reki muttered only a few minutes after they'd arrived.

Langa had to look around in order to gauge whether or not he was right. "Maybe," he said simply. He got stared at quite often, whether he was in a skatepark or not, so he just ignored it.

"Yeah, look, see? They're whispering," Reki hissed.

Langa sighed and almost said, "Who cares?" but, then, maybe that wasn't the right thing to say. "Who cares?" was the matra he'd lived by his whole life. Kids made fun of him for his eyes? Who cares. People didn't understand why he's so quiet? Who cares. "Why aren't you super smart? You're Asian." Who cares. "What are you?" Who cares. "Oh, it's so terrible what happened to your father." Yeah, well, who cares that you care, you didn't know him. "Oh, wow, the new transfer student is white?" Who. Cares.

Maybe he should care. Maybe it didn't matter.

"You can't let it bother you," Langa said instead, hoping his words sounded relatively gentle. "Let's just skate."

"But what if it's last night that they're whispering about?" Reki asked, and then cringed.

"Do you… wanna go somewhere else?" Langa asked, hoping that would help.

"No!" Reki snapped, fidgeting his board in his hands.

Langa sighed. "C'mon, let's just go down to the split pass instead," he decided. "Nobody ever goes down there but us."

Reki looked at him, then back at the other skaters, then at him again. Like he was weighing which was worse—potentially being talked about or getting stuck, alone, with Langa.

"We're going to talk about it," Langa said flatly. "Sometime today, whether you like it or not."

Reki scowled at him, toiling in place some moments longer before saying, "Let's just go."

So they ended up down under a walking bridge not far from the skatepark. It wasn't all that great a place for working on tricks or speed, but sometimes a place where no one else went was exactly what Langa and Reki preferred—to be just by themselves.

Sliding to a stop in the shadows of the bridge, Langa watched as Reki rolled by him, slow-going and refusing to look at him.

"Let's just get this over with," Langa started, snapping his board up into his hands.

"Or we could not," Reki replied.

"You wanna keep acting awkward around each other?"

Reki shrugged. "Give it a few days and that'll go away."

Langa scoffed.

"I don't _wanna_ talk about it," Reki muttered.

"Why not?"

"Because—It's just—I don't want to!"

Maybe direct questions would better serve them both. "Do you have a problem with people thinking you're gay?" Langa asked.

Reki whipped around on him, eyes wide and startled. "I—wait, what do you mean?"

"You're worried about what people will think because of what they saw," Langa reasoned. "You don't want people to think you're gay."

"Of course I don't want people to think I'm gay," Reki hissed. "That doesn't mean I have a problem with it."

"That's exactly what it means."

"What?"

"If you didn't have a problem with gay people, you wouldn't have a problem with other people thinking you were gay."

"That's bullshit," Reki said fiercely. "Even if I was gay, I wouldn't want everybody and their brother to know about it."

Langa almost objected—almost—but then thought better. Why was he hiding the truth about himself from Reki? From everyone but his mom? He'd be a hypocrite if he accused Reki of being homophobic when he had his own reasons for keeping his mouth shut.

"So you don't have a problem with gay people?" Langa asked.

"Of course not." Reki shrugged. "Let people be whoever and do whoever they want, doesn't make any difference to me."

Despite himself, Langa smiled. Only shortly, and only when Reki was staring down at the ground.

"Then why are you so upset about what happened?"

"I don't know," he muttered. "I'm not that upset anymore, not like I was last night. I just… If people are gonna talk about me, that's not what I want them to be talking about."

Langa supposed that was fair.

"You acted like it'd be a problem, though," Langa continued. "If people thought we were gay."

"Isn't being gay kind of a problem in most places, even if it's more accepted?" Reki asked.

"I guess…" Langa sighed. "But everyone at 'S' is 'different' to begin with."

"Not that kind of different."

"I don't understand."

Reki hummed thoughtfully and stared up at the bottom of the bridge. "Skating is, like, a 'manly' thing, you know? It's…" He waved his hands around helplessly.

"Cherry isn't masculine," Langa reasoned. "Neither is Miya."

"Miya is a kid. And Cherry is definitely masculine."

"His name is 'Cherry Blossom.'"

"You just don't get it because you're foreign," Reki replied, which had Langa pursing his lips in annoyance. "Cherry's a certain kind of guy that… can be feminine and also still be masculine. You hear how the girls cheer for him."

Maybe, but Langa still didn't understand.

"Trust me," Reki assured. "There's a big difference between being Cherry and being gay. People would definitely have a problem with the gay thing."

"People have problems with a lot of things," Langa pointed out.

"I know, it's just…" Reki pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't want people to know my personal stuff. What we were doing—"

 _Were_?

"—was supposed to stay between us. I don't like people knowing my business, or talking about my business. I would just prefer that if people were going to talk about me, it be about how I beat Shadow, and my skating—stuff like that. Not… what I do with my best friend when no one's looking."

Which was… reasonable, Langa supposed. "I get that," he started. "But I wish you'd at least talk to me. I don't wanna end up fighting every time something upsets you or if I say something insensitive. I don't _want_ to be a jerk, but if I don't get what's going through your head, then I can't do anything."

Cheeks having flushed, Reki refused to look at him.

"Like… with the whole Adam thing," he dared to say. "I know I broke our promise, which was shitty and I get that, but I still don't understand why making that promise was such a big deal in the first place."

"Did you not see what Adam did to Cherry when they raced?" Reki asked. "He nearly killed him."

"But what does that have to do with us?"

"Because racing Adam was dangerous. I told you I was scared of him."

"And I wasn't."

Reki growled. "You should've been. You still should be—guy is probably going to prison _and_ he's a psychopath."

"And he's a really good skater."

"You are so…" Reki was visibly pained and closed his eyes for just a second to gather himself. "I had nightmares after I skated against him," he admitted, sounding shaky. "But they weren't about me. They were about him hurting you. His entire game is to hurt other people until he gets what he wants. That's not the kind of person that should interest you."

"I'm not 'interested' in him," Langa said, pinning the nightmares as something he needed to ask about later. "I don't even like him, but that doesn't have anything to do with his skating."

"Yes, it does," Reki hissed through his teeth. "I get that you want to push yourself and that you get a thrill out of challenges—I do too—but there are certain kinds of people that shouldn't be entertained. Once I realized the kind of skater Adam really was, I didn't want anything to do with him. The only reason Cherry and Joe wanted a beef with him was because they actually knew him, and as soon as Cherry ended up in the hospital, neither one of them wanted anything to do with him anymore."

"If someone could beat him, then he'd be put in his place."

"No, he wouldn't. He'd just keep going after that person, over and over and over again. His obsession with you was just as worrying as his skating. You don't put a person like that in their place—it's not possible. Think about it: when someone beats you, does it put you in your 'place?'"

"I'm not like him," Langa growled, Reki's previous reference to he and Adam being the same kind of "geniuses" still stinging. He'd never, ever hurt anyone to get ahead, not on purpose. If anything, Adam's cheap tactics were the one thing Langa hated about how he skated. "I don't hurt people."

"You hurt me," Reki rebuked. "Adam hurt me—he hurt a lot of people. And if my friend came to me and said 'hey, this person hurt me, please don't affiliate with them,' I'd say, 'okay,' and that would be it. End of discussion."

A point Langa couldn't immediately refute.

"The best thing you could have done to 'beat' Adam was to have refused to race him altogether. The way that guy acts? There's nothing about him worth learning from. _He_ is not worth it. _He_ is the guy you shouldn't have cared about."

Langa wanted to disagree. Instinctively, he wanted to defend himself. Yet, maybe… maybe Reki wasn't wrong.

He hadn't thought of it that way before.

"Fine," he accepted, rather ungracefully. "But you messed up too. You just… disappeared. You stopped talking to me; you wouldn't explain what was going on. Just like last night. I didn't understand what I had done back then and you refusing to have anything to do with me didn't make it better."

Reki looked away again, jaw stiff. He said nothing for a long while, until Langa finally slumped with helplessness.

"Reki…" he muttered desperately.

Fingers flexing on his board, he stared down at his shoes. "I just… felt like…" His breath once again came out shaky. "Like you didn't… need me around anymore."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're so amazing, Langa," he explained. "You learn things so fast and the way you skate… I'll never be able to keep up with you. I want to—I always want to skate with you—but I also feel like I'm… getting left behind."

"That's not true at all," Langa said swiftly. "We'll always skate together, Reki. I don't even want to skate if I can't skate with you."

Startled by his claim, Reki finally met his gaze. "What?"

"Skating's not fun without you," Langa admitted. "Sure, going against good skaters is thrilling and exciting, but I don't care about any of it if you're not there. I'd never have even learned to skate if not for you." He held his board close, heart beating fast and hard in his chest. "When you stopped talking to me, I… didn't want to do any of it anymore."

Reki was stunned. He stood there, blinking, mouth hanging open. It was sort of embarrassing, for Langa, that was. Or would have been, were it not for the horrible grief that suddenly settled inside his chest, leaving him suffocated and cold.

"I quit snowboarding when my dad died," he said quietly, taking his turn to look away. "It wasn't fun anymore, without him. What point is there in anything if the people you care about can't be with you?"

"Langa…"

"Skating… It isn't fun without you."

He could feel Reki staring at him, but he didn't look up to meet his gaze. Thinking too hard on such things—on why he enjoyed skateboarding and why he couldn't snowboard anymore—always made him feel like he was being submerged in water. Like every feeling and sensation in his body was slowly trickling out through his fingertips, until all that was left was a human husk.

He hated it. Before his father had died, he'd never have known such a feeling, and now he knew he'd never be rid of it. Like a ball and chain hooked around his ankle, he was dragging it always, even if he usually held it back from invading his entire person.

Reki… Reki was one of the few people that could make him forget. No, not forget, but feel, just, normal. Like himself again.

"Langa," Reki murmured, closer now. Abruptly tired and heavy, Langa forced himself to look at Reki, who was now standing just at his shoulder. "I'm sorry," Reki continued. "I… I had no idea." Reaching out, he laid his hand on Langa's shoulder. "I'm so, _so_ sorry."

Langa knew he was doing a piss-poor job hiding his grief—it was probably splashed across his face in huge, gray swaths—but, then, if there was anyone he trusted to see him this way, it was Reki.

"Oh, Langa," Reki said brokenly, which had Langa gulping back against the pressure. "I should have known—I didn't think." Stepping closer, wrapped his arms around Langa's shoulders in much the same way Langa had his the night before. His warmth, his breath across Langa's ear, it was enough to start thawing the horrible chill that had started clenching at his heart. Leaning into the embrace, he dropped his board to the ground and pulled his arms around Reki's back.

Taking in a deep breath of that ginger and wood, he closed his eyes and leaned his head on Reki's shoulder.

"You couldn't have known," he muttered, not really knowing what Reki "couldn't have known." Couldn't have known how much he meant to Langa? How much he needed and depended on him? Maybe the specifics didn't matter—Reki knew. Langa didn't have to wade through annoying words to get him to understand, not like how Reki had to do with him.

They didn't stay standing like that for long—Langa didn't want to. He didn't want to remain focused on the past, on his father, on the grief. What he wanted was distraction—forward progression. And Reki. His warmth, his smile, his hands all over his body. He shouldn't, he knew that. And he shouldn't take advantage of their arrangement when his own feelings were so compromising, but…

It was so hard.

Nosing into Reki's neck, he ignored how his heart fluttered and gave into the urge to press his lips to Reki's skin. He could feel it, his pulse, close by, and smell the sun-kissed sweat from their ride across town. Just the thought had his blood pumping faster.

"Um…" Reki said quietly, as Langa slowly trailed kisses up the side of his neck, to his jaw. "Are—Are we still doing this?"

Langa didn't reply, instead putting a very purposeful kiss just at the base of Reki's ear.

Reki cleared his throat. "Because we can, I just didn't know if you'd—After last night…"

"I thought 'last night' made things pretty clear," Langa murmured, his lips brushing down Reki's jaw as they turned to face one another directly. So close, Reki's eyes searching.

"I meant what happened at the track," Reki said breathlessly, his cheeks flushed a pretty pink. "Not what we did… after."

"Was 'after' bad for you?" Langa asked.

Reki's eyes went wide. "No!" he said quickly.

Answer enough for Langa. Quickly closing the gap between them, he closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Reki's own with much the same vigor as he had the night before, when they'd been lying in bed together. Reki immediately took in a quick breath and parted his lips invitingly, allowing Langa to deepen the contact, their mouths slotting urgently together.

God, Langa wanted this so bad. For _real_. But he'd take what he could get.

Reki's hands slid to grip hard at the rounds of Langa's shoulders, while Langa twisted his fingers in the back of Reki's damp shirt. All while he sucked Reki's bottom lip, greedy and wanting and vulgar.

But then Reki leaned suddenly away. "Someone could see us," he whispered.

" _For fuck's sake,_ " Langa growled. Dropping the back of Reki's shirt, he pulled his arms around and instead grabbed his shirt by the front. Balling the fabric up in his fists, he rather aggressively hauled Reki backward, his best friend stumbling as he moved them further under the bridge. Until they were standing in the shadows between two concrete pillars. Shoving Reki into one of the supports, Langa took a moment to get a look at him—all red-faced and rumpled with teasingly wet lips—before he stepped back in, flattened his hands on either side of Reki's head, and once again trapped his lips with his own.

Reki responded enthusiastically, his own hands coming up to grip at Langa's chest, while he mimicked Langa's motions in much the same way he had the night before. Ever the fast learner—if not sometimes over-eager—Reki was soon slipping his tongue along Langa's upper lip, just lightly, which was invitation for Langa to push their mouths more hotly together and run his own tongue along Reki's teeth, before sliding it back along the top of his mouth. Lightly, which had Reki jumping in surprise.

But he didn't just jump—something like a humming groan escaped his throat, sending a heavy wave of heat down between Langa's legs.

"Shit," Reki muttered, stifling the sound and breaking their kiss. He turned slightly away, face deep red with stunned shame. But Langa didn't have much in the way of time for that. Grabbing Reki by the chin, he turned his head back into place and reconnected their mouths. Wanting to hear that sound again, he repeated the motion with his tongue, before sliding it along Reki's own.

Reki huffed, and started exploring Langa's own mouth in turn, but he was quiet. Almost too quiet. Self-consciously quiet.

That wouldn't do.

Catching Reki's tongue, Langa sucked on it shortly, before breaking their kiss with a loud smacking sound. Taking a quick breath, he dove back in half a second later, his hands finding Reki's hair and shifting through the locks. Gently laying Reki's head back against the concrete, he trailed light kisses from the corner of his mouth down across his chin, before drawing himself back and licking him from the bottom lip up.

Reki gasped, eyes closed, but still, he was censoring himself.

Growling in the back of his throat, Langa nipped his top lip more harshly, before taking a chance and rolling his hips long and hard into Reki's own.

This earned him a sputtering groan, Reki's eyes fluttering open as he breathed hard, practically sinking into the support pillar.

Langa could feel it, Reki's erection through his loose-fitting pants. Hardly necessary for "kissing practice," but he wasn't about to say anything. Instead, he rolled his hips again, making sure he was angled in a way that would make it obvious to Reki just how hard he was too. This pulled another moan from Reki. He was biting his bottom lip even as Langa continued to kiss him around the mouth, his hands practically scraping against Langa's chest.

Again, Langa rolled their hips together, Reki's own jerking forward in response.

"S—Sorry," Reki muttered stupidly.

Langa didn't see why he should be. Harshly, he pinned his hips forward, shoving Reki's entire body into the pillar. Even with his jeans and Reki's pants between them, he lined his own length with Reki's and rolled into him again, more harshly. Reki released little desperate breaths, Langa hardly aware that he was doing much the same through his nose, all as his motions quickly deteriorated into something more hectic and needy.

They weren't kissing anymore, Reki's breath splashing over Langa's face as he gritted his teeth in concentration. All the while, his hip-rolling transformed into a desperate sort of jerking, until he was dry-humping Reki into the concrete.

Which… was not great, but, dammit, it felt so fucking good and it was Reki and he smelled so nice and felt so warm and Langa loved him and…

Eyes cracking open, Langa was surprised to see that Reki's were open as well. Heavily lidded with arousal, but open and… watching him. Hyper-focused. Enraptured, even. Which only sent another spiral of heat down through Langa's body. Hands anchoring themselves down on Reki's shoulders, he continued humping against him, a bit harder and a bit faster, like some kind of manic, disgusting dog.

Or like a horny teenager, probably.

Reki let go of another poorly stifled moan, which came out like a hum, even as he kept his his eyes trained on Langa's face. Langa tried to hold the eye contact, but he just… couldn't. Instead, he leaned his head in over Reki's shoulder and whimpered, layer upon layer of heat piling up between his legs as he thrust gracelessly against his _best friend_. Reki moving his hands around to his back and holding him closer, _tighter_ , definitely made it all worse, Langa nearly on the verge of reaching down and undoing his pants just so he could rub himself the rest of the way off. Better yet if Reki did it.

Just that thought, it was nearly—

"Look, Mama, there's a skateboard down there!"

Stopping dead, Langa felt the way Reki froze against him, the two of them holding their breath as their attention snapped upward. Relieved that no one could actually see them beneath the bridge, Langa then flicked his gaze to Reki's skateboard, which was sitting outside the shadows of the bridge, flashing beneath the direct sunlight.

"Oh, you're right," the child's mother (probably) agreed above them. "Looks like someone must have left it behind."

Okay, yeah, they definitely couldn't keep doing what they were doing while knowing there was a child listening in, not in public. That just… No, Langa couldn't do it. His hard on was shrinking at the very thought.

Clearing his throat, Reki very gently pushed him away, Langa staggering back a step. Once he was free, Reki visibly straightened his pants over his erection, which did have Langa's own twitching even as the heat continued to fade.

Moving out into the sunlight, Reki grabbed up his skateboard and turned quickly to wave up at the people above, while Langa took a steadying breath and tried not to be entirely ashamed by what they'd been doing. What _he'd_ been doing, mostly.

Reki eventually ducked back beneath the bridge, holding his skateboard guardedly in front of his crotch. Despite having been enamored with watching Langa previously, he couldn't meet his eyes then. Which was… not a good sign, as far as Langa could figure. In the heat of the moment, everything he'd done had felt like a good idea, but now that there was cold distance between them, he was realizing that he'd probably pushed it too far. Rubbing dicks, even with their clothes on, was _not_ kissing practice. 

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!

Reki cleared his throat. "So… wanna race across town?" he asked gruffly, still refusing to look up. "As fast as we can go?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Langa said as he moved to his own board.

"We have to sprint up all the hills," Reki added, as he dropped his board to the ground and pushed off, not _once_ meeting Langa's gaze. "And jump over everything we possibly can. Really push ourselves, you know?"

Langa nodded, shaking himself a bit and taking off after him. "Sounds great," he muttered under his breath and rolled back out into the sunlight.

Once again, everything left unsaid bloated up between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Langa, CALM DOWN! We all know you want to bone Reki, but the poor redhead still thinks he's straight. You might have broken him! 
> 
> So... I had toyed for a while with whether or not this fic would go up to explicit as far as ratings, but after this chapter went a little more in that direction than I had originally planned for, I think that's the way we're ultimately headed. I don't know if that's going to be bad news for some of you, but the rating will probably go up after chapter 6 or 7. I even did the "responsible" thing and went back and aged them up, if that's a sticking point for anyone.
> 
> Back to the chapter, though. I worked really hard at the beginning of the chapter to sort of expand on why Langa reacts to things the way he does, much as I did with Reki in the last chapter. This chapter is sort of meant to mirror the last chapter, so I hope it kinda, sorta succeeded there. These boys are (hopefully) starting to figure out how to communicate, in any case. 
> 
> Come chat with me over on twitter! You know you want to!


	6. Chapter 6

Langa was pretty sure he'd fucked up.

How did he know? Because Reki was acting like a startled cat that'd just been let loose in a new house. This wasn't to say that Reki avoided him for the rest of the day following their… intimate moment under the bridge, but he was definitely jumpy. And weirdly… giggly. Not in the cute, flirty way either. More like he was trying desperately to fill space while being superficially enthusiastic. And he flitted around like he couldn't stand to be in one spot for more than a few seconds. Sure, Reki could be hyped up and excited, but he was also able to be hyper-focused.

It was like his entire attention span had snapped. If he wasn't skating, he was circling close to Langa or pacing up and down the street or leaning in only to lean away or tugging on Langa's shirt or ruffling his hair. He didn't even finish his ice-cream when they stopped for some, allowing it to melt (so Langa had drunk it from the cup for him). He had to touch nearly everything they passed—benches, street signs, traffic barriers, _cars_ —and Langa grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out of traffic at least twice.

So Langa decided he definitely needed to say something before they parted ways in the evening, even if he had no idea where to start.

"So… look," he said ineloquently, as they walked beneath the ignited lamps lining Reki's street. It was dark otherwise, as they'd stayed out the entire day.

"What?" Reki asked as he grabbed one of the lampposts and twirled around it like he was performing a dance number akin to Singin' in the Rain.

"About earlier," Langa started lamely, not at all certain where he was going with this. "When we… under the bridge."

Reki blushed appropriately, his gaze drifting sideways as he pushed off the lamppost and kept walking on ahead.

"What about it?" he had the audacity to ask.

Langa hummed in annoyance, unabashedly staring at Reki's butt as recompense. "I got a little… excited… and it probably wasn't okay, so… sorry." He knew his own cheeks were flushed, but hopefully the general darkness would hide as much.

Ahead of him, Reki didn't say anything. Initially, anyway, which left Langa to wait in tense unease.

Eventually, he cleared his throat. "It's… not a big deal," Reki decided. "It's natural, isn't it? We were kissing, after all. I… felt it too."

"Natural…" Langa repeated suspiciously.

Reki turned back to him, walking backward, his skateboard tucked under his arm. "Sure. You know, just a reaction to what we were doing. That's to be expected, isn't it? I couldn't help the… sounds I made." He flushed even more deeply. "It just sort of happened."

"Uh huh…" Langa honestly didn't know what to do with such reasoning. It… wasn't what he'd expected. Either Reki thought it was reasonable for Langa to lose control and hump his best friend because they happened to be locking lips, or he was trying to justify his own arousal. The longer Langa thought on it, the more he started to think it was probably the latter. Reki clearly felt that he was straight, which meant he had to somehow justify getting a hard-on kissing another dude and then moaning when that same dude got physical with him. By extension, then, Langa also had to be excused.

So he was either, A, as straight as he claimed and really was so comfortable with his sexuality that rubbing one off through his pants with another guy didn't bother him, or, B, he was very, very deep in the closet, and, by extension, denial.

But if he really was comfortable with his sexuality, would he have been that worried about the kiss at the track? Or was the whole private vs public thing that big of a deal to him? That sounded more plausibly safe to Langa, as coming to the conclusion that Reki was maybe closeted (and unaware of it) was nearly enough to make Langa's head implode.

He didn't want to think there was even a sliver of a possibility that he might actually stand a chance with Reki. It was… too overwhelming. And ultimately disappointing.

This whole thing was giving him a headache.

"It's all just… physical sensations in the end," Reki continued. "It doesn't _mean_ anything."

Langa clicked his tongue. "Right. But… even with that being true," it wasn't—not for him at least, but whatever, "it was still… a little much."

"Yeah, I suppose," Reki agreed as they finally reached his house. He didn't sound entirely certain as they came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. "Probably shouldn't let it happen again, huh?" He smiled, but it was tight on his face.

"Probably not," Langa agreed, even as he felt his dick shriveling up in disappointment.

"Doesn't really fit into the whole 'kissing practice' thing anyway," Reki said.

Grinding. Humping. Getting-off. _Together_.

"Not really," Langa agreed.

"We'll just stick to the kissing, then."

Perfect. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. Because that was going to go _so_ well.

Langa sighed. "Probably for the best."

Reki nodded, the silence that cropped up between them not exactly awkward, but still sparking with something. Tension, expectation, uncertainty. It got so thick that Langa was certain he was getting light-headed. He only found ground again when Reki suddenly stepped forward and, hesitantly, pulled his hand up to Langa's face.

Gently, he touched his fingertips to Langa's cheek, his eyes thoughtful and searching. But only for a second, before he leaned in and laid a light, nearly none-existent kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He was leaning away before Langa could turn to catch those lips with his own, Reki's hand drifting from his face down to his collar and over his chest, before he was taking a step back.

"Goodnight, Langa," he murmured, smiling softly and holding eye contact just long enough to be torturous. Before he was turning and skipping quickly up the stairs to his house.

Watching, Langa remained in place until he'd disappeared into the darkness, a pathetic whimper leaving his throat as he pulled his skateboard up to his face and thumped his forehead against the deck.

He felt like an under-leveled video game character that had died only to be brought back over and over and over again, just to get his ass kicked the same way. Doomed for eternity. For as long as Reki kept him on this leash.

Ugh, how was he this whipped?

Turning to start heading for home, he dropped his board to the sidewalk and rolled slowly on. His thoughts kept circling around Reki's logic as to what had happened between them, but he was still baffled by the whole thing, even as he was walking in through his front door.

His mother wasn't home—working late—and he was, honestly, exhausted, so he changed and dropped into bed shortly after getting home, his gaze trained on the ceiling even in the darkness.

"Physical sensations?" he muttered to himself. Physical sensations that didn't mean anything, he reminded. Because that somehow made it okay.

Fuck.

Flicking his attention to his bedside table when his phone suddenly ignited, Langa considered whether or not to have a look, ultimately deciding that he wasn't going to be falling asleep anytime soon. Grabbing it up, he checked the notifications.

Miya: So what's going on with you and Reki?

Annoyed, Langa pulled up the chat to respond.

Langa: Nothing

Miya: C'mon, you two kissed.

Langa: Reki talked to you

Miya: And didn't tell me anything.

Miya: I'll have a better chance getting the truth out of you.

Langa: There's nothing to tell

Miya: You and Reki just kiss on the reg now? As bros?

Miya: Best bro kisses? Best bro smooches?

Langa: Sure

Miya: None-gay, best bro kisses on the mouth?

Langa: Okay

Miya: Oh, come on!

Miya: I totally saved your asses!

Miya: The least you can do is tell me what for.

Langa: Pass

Miya: You guys are dating.

Langa: We're not

Miya: It's the only thing that makes sense.

Miya: You're just keeping it a secret.

Miya: But like I told Reki, I'm cool with it.

Langa: Congratulations

Miya: No, congratulations to you!

Miya: Everyone can tell how in love with him you are, so I'm glad you two finally got things moving.

Sighing, Langa tapped his fingers on the sides of his phone and considered.

Langa: I'm not in love and we're not together

Miya: You are _so_ in love with him—it's so obvious.

Not to Reki, apparently

Langa: We're not like that

Langa: Please stop asking

Miya: …

Miya: Are you serious?

Miya: Like…

Miya: For real?

Langa: For real

Miya: Well…

Miya: Why the kiss, then?

Langa: No reason

Miya: Tell me!

Langa: Why?

Miya: Because you're so in love with him and I want you to be happy?

Langa: Please stop—Reki reads my texts sometimes

Miya: Are you hanging out now?

Langa: No

Langa: But he could still read it

Langa: Could get the wrong idea

Miya: _Then let's just type in English._

Miya: _My uncle lives in the US so I've gotten really good at writing, because of texting my cousin._

Miya: _I know Reki can't read it._

Langa: _That doesn't mean I'm any more interested in telling you anything_

Miya: _Oh, wow, wow, you type so much more in English._

Langa: _And you're a nosy little brat_

Miya: _True colors._

Miya: _Anyway, I know you're in love with him._

Miya: _It makes me sick, the way you look at him_.

Miya: _Joe and I talk about it all the time._

Langa: _You and Joe talk about it? Why do you care so much?_

Miya: _Because you're our friend and sometimes you look at Reki like he could stomp you into the ground and you'd thank him._

Langa: _I do not_

Miya: _You do._

Miya: _Just admit it._

Miya: _I'm going to know the truth whether you fest up or not._

Langa: _Fess up_

Langa: _It's fess up_

Miya: _Whatever._

Once again tapping his fingers on his phone, Langa bit his bottom lip and debated. The only person that knew about his feelings for Reki was his mom, which was… helpful, but he also didn't feel comfortable confessing everything he thought of Reki to her. Sometimes it would be helpful to be able to… express his frustrations with the entire situation, instead of constantly feeling like he was beating his head against a wall. At least if he had a friend to talk to about it, he could bang their head against the wall as well.

Besides, Miya sounded pretty certain about knowing the truth. And if he and Joe really talked about it…

Langa: _Fine_

Langa: _But you better not fucking tell anyone_

Miya: _Wait_

Miya: _You're really admitting it?_

Miya: _You're in love with Reki?_

Langa: _You said you already knew_

Miya: _I did!_

Miya: _I do!_

Miya: _Wow, okay._

Langa: _What?_

Miya: _I didn't expect you to say anything._

Langa: _Well I'm constantly suffering over the whole thing so I might as well drag someone else into it_

Miya: _Dramatic._

Langa: _You have no idea_

Miya: _So, wait, this doesn't explain why you two kissed, though. You act like he doesn't know…_

Langa: _He doesn't_

Langa: _And you better not tell him_

Miya: _I won't._

Miya: _And…_

Miya: _The kiss?_

Langa: _It's a long stupid story_

Miya: _I have all night._

Good, because he was about to be staring at stupid ellipses for a long while.

Langa: _Reki was annoyed that you and Shadow were making fun of him for not knowing how to kiss people or date girls or whatever. So he came up with this stupid plan where he and I would practice kissing with each other. And like a dumbass I agreed so now we've gotten into the habit of kissing each other, usually when no one is around, and apparently Reki was so excited that he beat Shadow in the race that he kissed me without thinking. It seriously did a number on his anxiety so don't bring it up to him anymore please_

Miya: _…_

Miya: _Are_

Miya: _Are you serious?_

Langa: _Sadly yes_

Miya: _LOL!_

Miya! _LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!_

Miya: _You poor bastard! Hahahahahaha!_

Langa: _Yes it's very unfortunate. Thank you so much for your sympathy_

Miya: _You're the one that agreed to do it!_

Langa: _What was I supposed to do?! My best friend who I'm in love with came up to me and said he wanted to practice kissing with me?!_

Langa: _Was I supposed to say no?!_

Miya: _Omg, you're both so fucking stupid._

Langa: _…_

Miya: _I can't believe I'm even friends with you idiots._

Langa: _…_

Langa: _It gets worse_

Miya: _I bet it does! LOL!_

Langa: _But I can't tell you about it because it's Mature Content and you're a minor_

Miya: _!!!_

Miya: _Did you two have SEX?!_

Langa: _NO!_

Miya: _Did you suck his dick?!_

Langa: _Miya!_

Miya: _Did you?!_

Langa: _NO!_

Miya: _Did you give him a rim job?!_

Langa: _Wth Miya?! No!_

Miya: _Can't be that bad then._

Langa: _It was Very Bad_

Miya: _Why do you do that?_

Langa: _What?_

Miya: _Capitalize letters like that._

Langa: _It adds emphasis_

Miya: _Oh._

Miya: _Huh._

Miya: _Anyway._

Miya: _You give him a hand job?_

Langa: _No_

Miya: _Wow, okay._

Miya: _Did he… suck your dick?_

Langa: _Nobody is sucking anyone's dick_

Miya: _That's sad for you._

Langa: _Yeah it is_

Langa: _:(_

Langa: _I wanna suck Reki's dick…_

Miya: _TMI! I'm a minor, remember?_

Langa: _We made out a little today_

Langa: _And Something Else_

Langa: _And then he said none of it meant anything and that it was all physical sensations and I think I might die_

Miya: _Wow, I feel like I'm getting to know a whole new side of you here._

Miya: _English Langa is a totally different experience._

Langa: _Reki is so great_

Langa: _I suffer_

Miya: _You did it to yourself._

Langa: _I know…_

Langa: _I really am an idiot_

Langa: _I know this whole thing won't end well_

Langa: _It's gonna break my heart and I said yes anyway_

Miya: _You're…_

Miya: _Surprisingly aware of that._

Langa: _Yup_

Miya: _…_

Miya: _I'm sorry, Langa._

Langa: _Thanks_

Miya: _But… maybe it won't end badly._

Langa: _Please don't give me hope. That's just going to make it worse_

Miya: _I'm serious!_

Miya: _It is pretty, ah, gay, kissing your best friend for practice. And he's the one that came up with the idea?_

Langa: _Yeah_

Miya: _I dunno_

Miya: _Sounds sus._

Langa: _You could tell just from looking at me how I felt_

Langa: _Wouldn't you have noticed anything from Reki?_

Miya: _He's harder to read than you are._

Miya: _He's really good at hiding how he feels when he wants to._

Miya _: Besides, if he seriously thinks kissing you is a "sensation" thing, then he's probably still in the cupboard._

Langa: _Closet_

Miya: _Yeah, that._

Miya: _And probably doesn't even know he's in there._

Frowning, Langa bit the inside of his cheek. He'd been wondering about the same thing himself, but…

Langa: _I dunno…_

Miya: _I'm just saying, straight guys don't normally make-out with their guy best friends._

Langa: _It's different between Reki and I though_

Miya: _Is it?_

Miya: _Is it that different?_

Langa: _I don't know_

Langa: _I never had a best friend before Reki_

Langa: _But he acts like it's, I don't know, not normal but not… weird?_

Miya: _It's definitely weird._

Miya: _Least he could do is accept that much._

Langa: _Maybe_

Langa: _Maybe he does accept it_

Langa: _I don't know what's going on in his head most of the time_

Miya: _Honestly, same._

Langa: _Maybe I should just tell him the truth_

Miya: _About how you feel?_

Langa: _Yeah. And the whole being gay thing_

Miya: _He doesn't know you're gay?_

Langa: _No. Just my mom knows_

Langa: _And you now I guess_

Miya: _I'm fluttered you would feel safe telling me._

Langa: _Flattered_

Miya: _What?_

Langa: _You're flattered_

Langa: _And, well, you kinda figured it out so…_

Miya: _Still._

Miya: _Why haven't you told Reki?_

Langa: _About the gay thing? Or the love thing?_

Miya: _The gay thing._

Langa: _I…_

Langa: _Try not to rock the boat_

Langa: _It was so depressing when we were fighting during Adam's tournament_

Langa: _I don't want to change things between us_

Miya: _I don't think Reki would care._

Langa: _He might_

Langa: _Since he's been kissing me_

Miya: _I still doubt he'd care._

Miya: _Reki's a good person._

Langa: _Yeah, he is…_

Miya: _Beside, if you tell him you're gay, it might put the idea in his head._

Miya: _You know, "awaken" something in him._

Langa: _Or he'll be weird about it_

Miya: _I don't think so._

Miya: _I don't think Reki thinks about people that way._

Miya: _He'd accept you._

Miya: _He'll probably just go "huh, okay, anyway, skateboarding, blah, blah, blah."_

Snorting a silent sort of laugh, Langa smiled to himself.

Langa: _Probably_

Miya: _You should tell him._

Miya: _He's your best friend._

Miya: _No matter the weird sexual arrangement you have with one another._

Langa: _It's not sexual_

Langa: _Well…_

Langa: _It's not supposed to be_

Langa: _I don't think_

Miya: _You guys are practically friends with benefits, you realize that, right?_

Miya: _Like, that's what's happening._

Langa: _I realize a lot of things_

Langa: _Even if Reki doesn't_

Miya: _Fair._

Miya: _Anyway, tell him._

Langa: _I'll think about it_

Langa thought long and hard about their conversation for about an hour after he set his phone aside, before he finally fell asleep. Telling Reki the truth sounded like a good idea when he was comfortable in the dark and didn't have to actually talk to him, but by morning, he was less convinced.

"Long time no see," his mother said as he wandered out of his bedroom, fully dressed. He and Reki were scheduled to be meeting up in half an hour. "I made you an omelet."

"Thanks," he muttered as sat down at the table, his mother sliding the egg concoction onto the plate sitting there.

"You look tired," she said, reaching down to lift his chin, so she could get a better look at his face.

"Stayed out too late," he replied.

She smiled knowingly. "With Reki?"

Langa was not impressed. "Don't start."

"I didn't say anything," she said far too innocently as she moved back toward the stove.

Wolfing down his breakfast as fast as possible, Langa didn't entertain any of her other more probing question, downright refusing to say anything until he was shoving his feet into his shoes and grabbing his skateboard.

"Have a good day!" his mom sing-songed as he pulled open the door.

"I will."

"Oh, I know."

Langa huffed and headed out.

Meeting Reki outside his house… didn't go as usual. Not the usual they'd developed over the last month, anyway. Reki came dropping out from his window ramp, as expected, and would have normally skidded to a stop in front of Langa to reach up and peck him on the mouth. This time, however, he faltered before grinning and suggesting they stay local for their skating, as they'd pushed themselves pretty hard the day before.

No kiss. Not even a mention of it.

Langa couldn't tell if this was a result of the "incident" at the track or of what had happened the day before. Probably both? He had no idea. What he did know was that Reki didn't approach him for a kiss all day, leaving Langa deflated as the hours wore on. There'd been plenty of opportunities—times when they were alone—but Reki never made move. He hesitated on a few occasions, perhaps thinking about it, but never followed through.

And while Langa had been the one to initiate their last two "kissing" instances, he was still paranoid that he'd gone too far with Reki under the bridge. That wasn't to say he was scared, but that he was growing more and more determined not to let what had happened repeat itself. Of course he _wanted_ to kiss Reki, but the less they did so, the less likely they were to go over the edge.

If Reki… didn't want to kiss him, then that was probably for the best.

Yes, that was it, Langa told himself after he and Reki had parted that night, still kiss-less. This was for the best. It was shitty and he had a feeling in his stomach like he was desperately hungry, but… better to cut away from it all while it was still clean. Well, not clean, but not nearly as jagged as it could be.

For two days, this continued, Langa wavering whenever Reki would look at him like he might be thinking about it, before ultimately doing nothing. Langa did notice, however, that Reki kept… staring at him. And looking increasingly curious. And then confused. And, finally, downright annoyed.

"What?" Langa asked him Wednesday afternoon, when they were both manning the counter at Dope Sketch. It was a slow day, as expected, and they had their elbows on the counter, heads cradled in their hands. Reki kept side-eyeing him, amber gaze developing a more and more accusing sharpness.

He'd gotten tanner over the weekend—it made his eyes stand out all the more starkly against his warm skin. How Langa wanted to touch him. Undress him. He was probably paler underneath all his clothes—in the areas that no one else ever got to see aside from during periodic trips to the beach. Reki was well-muscled, but soft. Scarred up some from years of bailing, but around every rough patch, Langa was certain the skin was silky smooth. He wanted to find all those little marks and trace them with his mouth. Freckles, too. Reki didn't have a swath of freckles, but he did have a few notable, very dark spots. One on the side of his neck, two on his left forearm. He had one on his right ankle, and three right between his shoulder blades (Langa remembered from the beach, obviously). He swore he had a big one on his hip. Probably others in places Langa had yet to see.

Ugh, he wanted to find them all! So he could _kiss them_!

"You're acting weird," Reki said simply, snapping Langa from his reverie.

"Huh?"

Reki leaned back. "Since Saturday."

"I'm not."

"You _are_."

This was for the best, Langa told himself. Over and over and over as he turned away and refused to fall victim to the subject. Don't look at him. Don't, don't, don't.

Don't give in. Don't lean over and kiss him. Hard, like he had before. And definitely, _definitely_ don't shove him up against the counter.

Don't even _think_ about it.

"Langa…"

He didn't answer and Reki growled.

Another two days of the same, though Reki was growing increasingly more irritated with him. Probably because Langa was barely looking at him. It was just… too tempting. If he didn't look at him, then he wouldn't have to feel the horrible surges of heat and want and _need_ that implored him to grab Reki by the front of his shirt, push him up against the nearest hard surface, and ravish him.

He needed to take advantage of this opportunity. For whatever reason, Reki had stopped kissing him. So he shouldn't encourage it. If Reki did suddenly start kissing him again, he definitely wouldn't have the strength to refuse him, but if no kissing was happening at all, then he could pressure himself to stay strong. Even if Reki kept raising his arms in exasperation whenever they got close, only for Langa to turn away. Or glaring whenever Langa refused to answer his vaguely probing questions.

Hard-headed and stubborn, was he? Now was the time to really prove it.

"Are we going to 'S' tonight?" Reki asked Friday morning, already sounding grouchy.

"Up to you," Langa reasoned.

"What about what you want?"

Langa shrugged. "I'm fine with whatever you wanna do."

"Maybe I'm tired of always being the one to do things," Reki rebuked.

Kicking off ahead of him, Langa didn't look back as they headed off to school, while Reki groaned in frustration from behind.

They did _not_ go to "S" that night.

Saturday, it rained. Like, really rained. Generally, a little bit of drizzle wasn't enough to deter Reki and Langa from skating or going out around town, but the heavy downpour started before dawn and was set to continue well into the night. Add in the wind and it was impossible to do much of anything.

Reki: You should still come over.

So, of course, Langa did. He brought his board too, because it felt weird to go anywhere without it. He wore a raincoat for the walk, but the wind was so severe and the rain so intense that it did no good whatsoever. By the time he was jogging up the stairs to Reki's house, he was completely soaked.

Dripping and breathing hard, he practically dove at the sliding door, which was cracked only slightly. Pulling it open just far enough to slide inside, he practically slammed it shut behind him, while the rain streamed from his body onto the stone entryway.

Reki was snorting with laughter as Langa turned to face him.

"You look like you just came out of the ocean," he commented from where he stood, dry, on the tatami mat floor of the common area. He was wearing a pair of old black sweatpants that he had hiked up to his knees and a yellow tank top. But not just any yellow tank top. It was the sort of cut that body builders wore, with the thin straps and the sleeves that were open to nearly halfway down the sides. Loose, but giving Langa a generous view of side-boob. Side-peck? He could see huge parts of Reki's chest and even some of his ribcage, was the point. Was the tank top comfortable? Probably. Was it somehow more suggestive than Reki at the beach without a shirt at all? Yes. He didn't know why, but it was.

"It's raining," Langa said flatly, dropping his skateboard to the floor.

"No shit," Reki replied. "Just stay right there. I'll get you a towel."

He disappeared somewhere off in the house.

Feeling like a soggy piece of paper, Langa balanced on one foot and then another as he yanked his shoes off, before he shed his coat and allowed it to flop gracelessly to the floor. Pulling his shirt out from his chest, he noted that it was hopelessly wet, as were his jeans.

He hated wet jeans.

"Here," Reki said as he returned, handing Langa not only a towel, but a pair of light gray sweatpants and a purple sweatshirt. He was still sort of laughing. "We'll hang your stuff up to dry."

Grunting, Langa quickly rubbed the towel over his hair and then quickly peeled away his t-shirt. Reki watched him only shortly, before he was turning to look elsewhere across the room. Until Langa lost his balance and fell on his ass while he was trying to get his jeans down his legs, at which point Reki turned back.

"If you didn't wear stupid skinny jeans," he said, as Langa practically rolled his jeans down his body.

"They're fitted," Langa objected as he finally managed to pop them over one foot.

"They're a little tight," Reki reasoned.

Reaching out, Langa grabbed up his sopping shirt and whipped it at him. It smacked him directly across the face, fwapping loudly on impact.

"Seriously?!" Reki barked, as he scraped the shirt off his face. Just in time to catch Langa's jeans as he tossed those as well. "Ungrateful…"

Taking the towel again, Langa silently started drying off the rest of his body, while Reki stomped off into the dining area with his clothes. Probably to drape them over the backs of the chairs.

Frowning as he fingered his briefs, Langa noted that they were soaked as well—uncomfortable and sticky.

Eyeing the door to the dining room, he quickly shot to his feet, wrapped the towel around his waist, and yanked off his underwear. He was pulling Reki's gifted sweatpants up to his hips just as his friend walked back into the room.

Naturally, he took the opportunity to wad up his briefs and chuck those at Reki too.

"What the fuck?!" Reki said as they hit him in the chest and dropped to the floor. "You're so immature." Bending over, he pinched the navy-blue fabric dramatically between two fingers, looking unnecessarily disgusted as he turned up his nose and headed back into the dining room.

Langa focused on getting rid of all the water. And on constantly pulling Reki's pants back up around his hips. They were too big on his narrow body and kept sliding dangerously low. There were holes in the front of the waistband, like they'd once had a tie, but it was long gone now.

Oh well.

Finally dried enough that he wouldn't be tracking water all over the house, Langa stepped up out of the entryway and dropped the towel over his head like a hood—to soak up the remaining water, obviously.

"Do you not have any socks?" Reki asked as he returned yet again.

"Didn't wear any," Langa replied.

"Dude…" Reki curled his nose in disapproval. "Sneakers and no socks? That's gross."

Langa shrugged.

Sighing, Reki shook his head and moved to the chair nearby, which was placed in front of a low-sitting table. It was another one of those legless chairs, with arms and a cushioned back. On the table, he had what looked like his sketchbook, while some Japanese gameshow was playing on the television. Muted, which in turn had Langa looking around curiously—it was abnormally quiet.

"Where is everyone?" he asked as he plopped down on the tatami beside Reki.

"Dad's at work," he said, "Tsukihi's at a friend's house, and Mom took the twins with her to see my grandparents. They live just outside town."

So they were… alone. With nothing to do because they couldn't skate.

Great…

"What are you working on?" Langa asked as Reki pulled his sketchbook into his lap and started drawing.

"New board design," he replied. "Shadow wants to redo his graphics and asked if I could design a sort of… evil spirit, ghost layout for him. I've been kind of slacking on it, but since there's nothing else to do today." He glanced over with a shrug and a small smile, Langa not missing the way his gaze dropped to his—Langa's—bare chest before he flicked it back to his drawing.

Someone had just lost bigtime on the gameshow, as they were crouching down and wailing dramatically, while weeping animated characters appeared around their head. Langa pretended to watch, as he had no idea what else to say to make conversation. He wanted to lean in and watch Reki draw, as he was prone to doing normally, but it felt like a bad idea given their current… attitude with one another. It wasn't awkward, just… bloated. Always so full of the things they weren't saying to one another.

It was almost exhausting.

"Could you put on a shirt?" Reki asked suddenly, without looking up.

Langa frowned, the towel still in place atop his head. "I'm waiting for my hair to dry."

"It's distracting," Reki muttered, his neck and face turning a very endearing shade of red.

"In a few minutes," Langa rebuked.

Reki growled low in his throat, but didn't continue to pester him. Langa, for his part, didn't understand why it mattered. They'd been shirtless around each other plenty—at school in the locker rooms, at the beach, when they had to change into their work shirts.

But, then, why was Reki's revealing tank top so distracting to Langa?

No, that wasn't the same. Langa was attracted to Reki—had a huge, fat crush on him. More than a crush, but whatever.

"You're so annoying lately," Reki muttered a few seconds later, like he was _trying_ to start a fight.

Langa glared at him and said, "So are you."

"What have I done?" he asked, once again turning to look up.

"Nothing," Langa replied, being purposefully belligerent despite the honesty behind his claim. He should be thankful that Reki had been doing "nothing" of late. It was for the best.

For the best, for the best…

He looked pointedly away.

"See?! That!" Reki said suddenly, Langa able to tell that he was pointing at him, just out of the corners of his eyes. "You're avoiding me!"

"I'm right here," Langa said, without looking at him.

"You always look away!"

"Nothing interesting to look at."

Reki scoffed. "Well, fuck you too."

Oh, shit, that had been insulting, hadn't it?

"Sorry," Langa muttered. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Whatever," Reki snapped and returned to his sketch. "Not everyone can look as good as you."

Langa sighed and gave into the urge to glance back at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"That there's nothing interesting to look at," Reki mocked sourly.

"I didn't mean it like that," Langa replied. "I was just… being an ass."

"Your specialty."

"Okay, what the fuck?"

"What?!" Reki said, their gazes finally intercepting.

"You say I'm annoying lately, but you're the one with a stick up your butt," Langa replied. "You've been acting like you're mad at me all week."

"Because I am mad at you," he said.

"Why?!"

"Because!"

"Reki, c'mon…"

Dropping his gaze back to his sketch, Reki started erasing furiously. "Something's wrong… between us."

Though he wanted to object, Langa knew there was no point. He was right, after all.

"Since Saturday," Reki continued, his neck and cheeks again flaring with red.

Langa took a long, uncomfortable breath. "You've been acting like you want space," he replied. "So…"

Reki clearly had no idea what he was talking about, based on his furrowed expression.

"You said we'd… stick to just kissing," Langa reasoned, his own cheeks warming lightly. "But then you stopped kissing me." Probably because what had happened on Saturday _had_ turned out to be too much. Which was _fine_. Langa could accept that, even if he didn't want to.

"You stopped kissing _me_ ," Reki clarified accusingly. "And that's okay, but if what happened on Saturday bothered you that much, you could just say so. Instead of avoiding me."

"I'm not—" Why would Langa be the one that was bothered? He'd initiated it all! "That's not it."

"Then what's the deal?"

"I thought _you_ were bothered by it."

"By Saturday?"

"Yes."

"I told you that night I wasn't," Reki said heatedly, again looking frustrated.

"I figured you changed your mind when you stopped kissing me," Langa replied.

"I told you, it was you who stopped!"

"I only ever started the kissing twice," Langa pointed out. "You used to kiss me all the time, every day."

"Those weren't—The kisses you started were totally different from that!"

"But you still start most of them."

"Not the—Not that kind…" Reki's face flared and he looked away, pouting. "Never mind."

Langa knew what he was implying, but he didn't say as much out loud. It was true, the two times he'd initiated the kissing had been vastly different experiences than what Reki had ever started. But he hadn't realized that Reki had expected him to take over or something.

"You obviously know more about what you're doing than I do," Reki said after a long pause. "So I thought you'd… keep showing me."

Langa's stomach did a little flip and he cursed his emotional weakness.

"Oh," he said lamely.

"Yeah…"

Another long, insufferable pause.

"You don't actually think I'm bad to look at, do you?" Reki asked suddenly, his pencil tapping anxiously on his sketchpad.

"Of course not," Langa said, his voice going gentle. "You're very attractive." A solid truth, as far as Langa was concerned. All the skating had given Reki a better body than almost all of their classmates and he had about the cutest, brightest smile Langa had ever seen. And stunning amber eyes, and soft lips, and…

And then there was how he was always willing to go above and beyond, even for strangers. He had a kind word for anyone that hadn't proven they didn't deserve it, and he was one of the smartest, most hard-working, talented people Langa had ever met. He was so good, and tried so hard, and cared so deeply. There was a reason skating was only fun when Reki could be beside him, or supporting him, or giving him the encouragement to keep going, even when he failed.

"You're beautiful, Reki," Langa murmured.

Reki glanced at him only quickly, searchingly, before he offered up a quick smile. One that was followed by the falling of his expression. Like he was thanking Langa for thinking so highly of him, but didn't actually believe a word of it.

The sight broke Langa's heart.

Chest surging with outrage that Reki didn't understand just how incredible and amazing and _gorgeous_ he was, Langa succumbed to the quivering need he'd been fighting off all week. He wasn't good with words, but if there was some other way to ease Reki's insecurities… Even if it was just a distraction, then…

Then it was worth all the inevitable pain he'd bring down on himself.

Allowing his towel to slip from his damp hair to the floor, Langa scooted across the space between them. He was reaching up to slide his hand along Reki's jaw just as he turned—startled—to look back at him.

Langa leaned forward and Reki took in a quick breath as their lips pressed together, eyes closing when Langa's did the same. Unabashedly needy, Reki pushed into him over the arm the chair, dropping his pencil and sketchbook on the table before he was sliding his hands up along Langa's bare collar. While Langa kept his hand gently caressing Reki's jaw and cheek, holding him like something breakable. Like he was valuable.

Because he was.

Because Reki was everything.

He kissed Langa like he'd been just as desperate as him all week. Like he wanted to breathe him in completely, which had Langa's own breath gasping out of him as he pressed closer, slotting Reki's wet, wanting lips with his own and starting their dance all over again.

It was too much—it was always too much. He shouldn't, he shouldn't, but when the arm of the chair spiked up between them, Langa wanted to rip it apart. Instead, he broke from their kiss just long enough to gather his bearings. Pushing himself up, he was pulling his leg over Reki's lap a second later, until he was straddling him in the chair, knees bordering his thighs as Reki wriggled beneath him. Until he was centered between Langa's legs, eyes wide as he stared into Langa's own. Nervous, but not against the move, his hands fluttering lightly up Langa's sides until he dared to rest them right above his hips.

His breath was trembling and he visibly gulped when Langa cradled his face with both hands, thumbs rubbing gently over his cheeks. It was this obvious tension that kept Langa in check, reminding himself that they didn't need a repeat of Saturday. Keeping his body carefully suspended, so he wasn't _actually_ sitting in Reki's lap, he leaned down and kissed him again. Deep, slow, and with meaning, even if he couldn't give that meaning words. Their noses brushed, then glided in beside one another, while Langa slid his tongue in alongside Reki's, less like they ought to get lost in a frenzied fight of passion, but more akin to a caress. Soft and wet and careful, considerate at they tasted one another, as they took the seconds they needed to breathe, as they pulled one another in.

Reki's hands, they tightened on Langa's waist, flexing dangerously. Like he might try to pull him closer. But here, Langa did fight back, remaining staunchly in place. This caused their kissing to falter, even as they panted into one another's mouths.

"It's okay," Reki murmured against him.

Langa hummed a sort of pathetic groan, a wave of arousal slamming down atop that which had been growing since he'd started the kiss. A wave of heat that was followed by another when Reki bent his head and blatantly looked down between them.

Without any underwear to even try and help, Langa knew his cock was very visibly erect inside Reki's old sweatpants. He felt incredibly exposed without the constriction of his briefs or jeans, and it was only the comfort that Reki was obviously faring no better that kept him from trying to, what, hide it? Yeah, okay, sure. A little late for that.

Seeing Reki's own pants tented to match his own had him twitching, wanting so badly to sink down into his lap.

"It's okay," Reki said again, as they flicked their gazes to each other's faces again.

"This isn't exactly kissing practice, Reki," Langa said gruffly, his hands falling to balance on Reki's shoulders.

Though he flushed more deeply than his arousal had already painted him, Reki managed a small grin. "Nothing wrong with… practicing other things."

Langa's dick twitched and his whole body lurched with heat, but still, he kept himself steady. "I don't think it's really the same thing," he said weakly, eyes closing as he bit at his bottom lip. He wanted so badly to just… agree and let go.

Reki's fingers trailed down to his hips, lightly massaging his skin and causing Langa to hum in the back of his throat.

"Nothing wrong with doing what feels good, right?" Reki asked quietly. Sincerely. Like he was honestly verifying that his rationale checked out.

Fuck, this wasn't fair. Langa could almost cry at how unfair it was. How did Reki do this? Convince himself that what they were doing—or could potentially be doing—was somehow within the same parameters of "kissing practice with your bro?" Did he really think that? Or was he hiding just as much as Langa?

No, he couldn't go there. It was too dangerous. This whole thing was too dangerous.

"Langa…" Reki whispered and leaned in, ever-so-gently kissing his neck.

" _Shit_ ," Langa muttered, trembling in place.

He didn't stand a chance.

Brushing all his doubts and fears aggressively aside, Langa ducked down and again grabbed Reki's lips with his own, all while he dropped his hips heavily into Reki's lap. They both gasped as he did, lips scraping weakly before they were kissing and kissing and kissing. Reki's hands traveled up across Langa's bare back, exploring, and Langa let his own slide down from Reki's shoulders, along the sleeves of his tank top before he slipped them underneath. He clutched at his chest, at the warmth and soft skin as Reki hummed approvingly into his mouth.

All while he slowly grinded down atop Reki, the taut fabric that was stretched against their erections brushing together. The friction was intoxicating and Langa couldn't help doing it again and again and again. Until he couldn't focus on anything else, their lips parting as they touched their foreheads together, panting and needy.

Opening his eyes, Langa was once more victim to Reki's enamored gaze upon him, watching. It stirred him further, his rocking down upon Reki's lap growing more insistent, the heat between his legs throbbing with fire.

Reki knew how this kind of thing was bound to end, right? He had to know. He had to have deduced that there was only one end to these sorts of activities. Which meant he was okay with it. Wanted it? Did Reki want this?

If it felt good? That was his reasoning.

It did feel good. It felt _so good_.

Langa was caught taking in a startled breath, his slow rhythm faltering when Reki lightly feathered his fingers down his back, so they were resting on the waistband of his sweats. Sweats that were already sagging precariously low.

"Is this okay?" Reki murmured, their lips barely brushing.

Langa nodded weakly. " _You can do anything you want to me,_ " he practically begged. " _Please, please touch me._ "

"What was that?" Reki asked.

"Yes, do it," Langa demanded.

Swift, and with heart-pounding urgency, Reki slipped his hands down into the back of Langa's pants. His fingers trembled over bare skin, but that didn't hold him back from grasping greedily at Langa's ass, gripping hard at each cheek as he pulled Langa all the closer.

Groaning, Langa flexed his own hands over Reki's chest and restarted his grinding tempo, Reki tugging him closer every time he thrust, his hands holding Langa's ass like an anchor. Which had Langa gradually speeding up, layer upon layer of dizzying heat building up and up and up.

Between their repetitive motions and Reki's hands interfering, Langa's sweats had dropped almost completely off his ass, leaving him both exposed and more dependent on the way Reki's big hands were holding him, groping harder and tighter and hotter.

The fabric over his dick, however, was getting too taut to be comfortable, the constriction increasing as the waistband was pushed down below his ass. Fumbling franticly—as if he were being burned—Langa shoved his own hand into the front of his pants. Which drew Reki's gaze down between them, but Langa didn't care. Couldn't care—was too crazed to care. He freed his bobbing cock from the fabric, hissing through his teeth at the sensation of abrupt open air.

Reki's hands on his ass tightened almost painfully. "Me too," he whispered, their sweaty foreheads still pressed together as they panted into each other's mouths.

The mere idea of what Reki wanted nearly threw Langa over the edge and he had to pause—hand gripping his own dick—in order to gather himself enough not to lose it. He was already leaking precum and knew he wouldn't last much longer no matter what he did.

Urgent and huffing, he quickly reached his trembling hand for Reki's waistband, clumsily yanking the fabric down enough for Reki's own dick to pop free. Time was of the essence and though he wanted to admire the sight, he needed to feel it even more. Shifting his hips forward, he wrapped his hand around them both, lining their erections together and starting to pump up and down their hot, throbbing, velvet shafts.

Reki moaned shortly, biting his bottom lip as he watched. He audibly tried to swallow back any noises, but it didn't work, his hums coming in tandem with Langa's desperate rhythm, until he gave up and gave in to the little gasping moans at every jerk of their dicks together.

It didn't take much. When Reki tightened his hold on Langa's ass almost painfully, the agonizing heat between his legs contracted in tandem, pushing Langa full over the edge. Groaning breathily, his hips instinctively twitched as he came up the front of Reki's shirt. Which might have been mortifying had Reki not gasped, lurched beneath him, and let loose his own load in much the same manner.

Continuing to pump them through to the end of the fluttering, torturous, withering high, Langa was weakly thrusting his hips with the motion, until he was holding two soft cocks in his hand with nothing left to give.

Hazy and shaking, he replaced his hand on Reki's shoulder, the other still tucked up under that damn tank top. Feeling unsteady, he leaned into him, his head slipping over Reki's shoulder and into the cushion of the chair behind. As if catching him, Reki moved an arm up to wrap around his back, the other cradling his behind as he held him, both of them breathing heavily and trembling against one another.

It took quite a few breathless minutes for any kind of coherent thought to squeeze its way into Langa's brain, and when it did, it was entirely unhelpful.

He'd just… ejaculated onto his best friend. He'd gotten off _with_ his best friend.

With Reki.

Just thinking about it left him jumbled, his whole body numb and tingling.

That… That had really just happened.

And, still, he was sitting there, limp dick out with Reki's, shirtless, ass bare, just… sitting in his lap.

This had to be a dream. None of this could possibly be real.

Holy. Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One would think they would learn how to actually communicate, but, alas, here we are, dicks out and ever-baffled. Teenagers. Poor Langa. And MIYA! Being the MVP once again. This poor child, he's, like, I'm gonna watch this whole situation explode, hand over the popcorn. Miya is me; Miya is us. 
> 
> Rating went up and I hope that's okay with everyone, lol. 
> 
> Come bother me on twitter! Or tumblr! But I respond better on twitter and I love to be bothered!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow me on twitter or tumblr. Name is SkayLanphear for both.


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